New research predicts precisely how many individuals will die by 2099 all as a consequence of one factor

The shocking new study has revealed that millions of Europeans are predicted to perish from the hot weather caused by climate change before the end of the century

A horrifying new study has predicted exactly how many people in Europe will be killed by climate change by the end of 2099. Boffins at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine concluded that 5.8million Europeans will die from excess heat between 2015 and 2099.

The study does not include deaths associated with catastrophic weather events caused by climate change such as wildfires and tropical storms so the actual mortality rate is likely to be higher. The scientists behind the study noted that the drop in deaths related to cold weather will be outweighed by the rise in heat.

Barcelona is expected to be the city with the most heat-related deaths followed by Rome, Naples and Madrid. Lead author Dr Pierre Masselot said: “Our results stress the urgent need to aggressively pursue both climate change mitigation and adaptation to increased heat.

“This is especially critical in the Mediterranean area where, if nothing is done, consequences could be dire. By following a more sustainable pathway, we could avoid millions of deaths before the end of the century.”

The study quashes the theory that climate change will be net beneficial due to the reduction of deaths related to the cold. ‘The increase in heat-related deaths consistently exceeds any decrease in cold-related deaths across all considered scenarios,’ the experts say in their paper, published in Nature Medicine.

Dr Masselot and colleagues analysed temperatures and mortality data to predict future heat-related deaths in 854 European cities between 2015 and 2099, as part of the study.

The boffins found, if there is high greenhouse gas emissions and no adaption to heat, there will be a total of 5,825,746 excess deaths in Europe.

However, 3,480,336 deaths due to the cold will be avoided, giving an overall ‘net’ mortality rate in Europe by 2099 of 2,345,410. The most vulnerable areas to the sky-rocketing temperatures will be southern European nations such as the Mediterranean region and the Balkans.

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