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Addressing the deadly impacts of heatwaves in Europe – The European Union Must Do More

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This year in June and July (and into this month of August), a global heatwave led to an increase in deaths and disasters. Several European countries were largely impacted, including the Netherlands, France, Portugal, and Spain. In this blog, we (Shellan Saling and Sylvia I. Bergh) review the European Union’s (EU) policy response to heatwaves, and argue for a more active role for the EU in coordinating national efforts to develop heat-health action plans (HHAPs).  

The death tolls of past and future heatwaves

The current heatwave is not the first one. In 2003, an extreme heatwave killed over 70,000 people across Europe. Certain population groups – such as the elderly, people with disabilities, youth, ethnic and racial minorities, and those experiencing homelessness – are especially vulnerable. These groups, as well as pregnant women, young children, and people with chronic conditions such as cardio-vascular diseases, are at higher risk of suffering from reduced physiological and behavioral capacity for thermoregulation, for example due to a limited capacity to sweat. Socio-economically disadvantaged people also have limited access to information sources where health warnings are shared and awareness is raised about how to protect oneself from the heat. More recently, the 2019 summer heatwaves affected Europe, more specifically France, Belgium, and the Netherlands with over 2500 deaths.

Unfortunately, future prospects are bleak. Researchers at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission predict that assuming present vulnerability and no additional adaptation, annual fatalities from extreme heat in 2100 could rise from 2,750 deaths now to 30,000 at 1.5°Celsius global warming, 52,000 at 2°C, and 96,000 at 3°C. The highest number of fatalities are expected to occur in France, Italy, and Spain. Given these dramatic figures, effective policy response from the European Union is urgent.

 

The EU’s policy response

The origins of the EU’s policy response can be traced back to the aftermath of the 2003 heatwaves, whose death toll sent shockwaves throughout Europe and prompted immediate action to develop national heat-health action plans (HHAPs). At the EU level, and the European Commission and European Environmental Agency (EEA) in particular, HHAPs fall under the health domain. Hence, the EU has worked closely with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on HHAPs beginning with the EuroHeat project, which identified eight core elements of HHAPs in 2008. They include an agreement on a lead body, accurate and timely alert systems, a heat-related health information plan, a reduction in indoor heat exposure, particular care for vulnerable population groups, preparedness of the health and social care system, long-term urban planning, and real-time surveillance and evaluation.

However, apart from issuing guidance, the EU has lacked a major role in mitigating the impacts of heatwaves. The question remains about why it does not play a more active role in mitigating the effects of heatwaves and in formulating heat-health policy.

We tried to answer this question as part of a wider study on HHAPs in France and The Netherlands, conducted as part of the first author’s Research Paper in the context of her International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) MA degree. The study was carried out in collaboration with an applied research project led by the second author. The findings are based on desk reviews and interviews with experts and policymakers.

 

Obstacles to a more effective EU response

We found that heatwaves and climate change in general fall under several different policy arenas including climate mitigation, adaptation, social policy, and health. This fragmentation limits the EU’s actions on heatwaves. In addition, categorising HHAPs as falling in the health domain makes it challenging for the EU to act because of their existing laws and regulations. According to the mandates specified in the Maastricht Treaty (European Union Treaty) and its Article 129(4), the European Union is allowed to spend money on European Union level health projects, but is not allowed to harmonise public health measures in member states.  The Amsterdam Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty (article 152(7)) provided further updates making it clear that health policy is the responsibility of EU member states.

Recent progress on climate change policy has been made within the European Union with the EU Green Deal. A key component, Regulation 2018/1999 of the European Parliament (known as the European Climate Law issued in 2021) established the framework for achieving climate neutrality. However, this regulation does not specifically discuss or call for national HHAPs.

Hence, there is currently no institution within the EU responsible for monitoring the heat-health action plans or heat health policy of member states more generally because under the EU’s limited mandate, it cannot enforce the HHAPs in the member states. Also, it is not in the EEA’s mandate to provide a framework for policy action in this area, and they cannot lobby or influence the EU member states much.

 

Sharing knowledge and funding research is good but not enough

Therefore, the main role the EU continues to have is to create and share knowledge with and between the member states. The EuroHEAT project mentioned earlier was co-funded by the European Commission (EC) Directorate-General for Health and Consumers. It quantified the health effects of heat in European cities and identified options for improving health systems’ preparedness for and response to the effects of heatwaves. By coordinating with the WHO European Region, the project led to the first framework for HHAPs. In addition, through the European Environmental Agency (EEA), in 2012 the EU has set up knowledge and research databases available on the European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT), which contain a host of data on climate and health (among other topics), including case studies on the impact of heatwaves on vulnerable populations and policy measures taken. In early 2021, the EU climate law led to the establishment of the European Climate and Health Observatory. It is managed jointly by the European Commission and the EEA as part of Climate-ADAPT. However, the Observatory has yet to increase its staffing to be fully operational.

Two other recent research and policy development projects funded by the EU were HEAT-SHIELD (a Horizon 2020 research project addressing the negative impact of increased workplace heat stress on the health and productivity of five strategic European industries) and the SCORCH (the Supportive Risk Awareness and Communication to Reduce impact of Cross-Border Heatwaves) project, which have generated useful academic and policy outputs.

However, besides investing in research and policy development, we believe that going forward, the EU should take a more active role in coordinating national efforts to develop HHAPs. For example, in our interviews, we found that there is a lack of communication between the national policymakers who work on heatwaves across the EU, and a desire for more exchanges on best practices. This could be addressed by funding targeted projects under relevant EU programs such as Interreg Europe. We also believe that it would be desirable for the EU to have a stronger role in monitoring the quality of the various HHAPs (using the elements in the WHO framework) and ensuring that they are integrated with other relevant (national and EU) polices on disaster risk reduction or national environmental planning.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Shellan Saling is a recent graduate from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) where she received her MA in Development Studies majoring in Governance and Development Policy. Her research paper (thesis) was on climate adaptation policies, and specifically on national heat-health action plans and heat-health policy within the EU.

 

 

Sylvia I. Bergh, Associate Professor in Development Management and Governance, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), and Senior researcher, Centre of Expertise on Global Governance, The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS).

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It’s time for flying to become the new smoking by Dorothea Hilhorst

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The recently published IPCC report paints a grim picture of the future if carbon emissions are not immediately and fundamentally reversed. It is now necessary to focus on our own contribution to the mess that we’ve made, Dorothea Hilhorst argues. She focuses on the flying habits of development practitioners and academics, asking whether flying should become the new smoking and how we can address our problematic flying behaviour.

Flying is an important contributor to global warming, and by far one of the most complicated. There are no signs that flying will be reduced and technical solutions to reduce carbon emissions are a long way off and not very feasible. Unlike cars, electric planes are not an option—flying a plane would require its entire space to be filled with batteries.

The IPCC report that came out last week is absolutely terrifying. The possibility of retaining global heating within 1.5 degrees is rapidly disappearing and we are facing global warming of 2 or even 3 degrees. The report contains convincing evidence of the devastation of that extra degree on biodiversity, sea level rise, disaster events, the economy, coral reefs, and so on.

With regards to flying, governments should get their acts together and start taxing air travel, while investing in alternatives, especially a huge expansion of fast train networks. But in the meantime, I think organisations and their employees should also take some level of responsibility.

The IPCC report comes out in the midst of a scandal over the irresponsible ‘flying behaviour’ of Erik Solheim, the director of the United Nations Environment Programme, who travels 80% of his time. In the coverage of the scandal, most attention centred on his flying for private purposes. This reflects a general view that private flying is a luxury, but business-related travel is just what needs to be done. But is that really true? I’m pretty sure that huge cuts could easily be made in business-related air travel.

There is now a call for environmental guidelines within the UN.  What, only now? Shocking, right? But let’s be honest, the whole aid and development world—the UN, NGOs, and my own world of  academic departments and development studies—is shamefully late in taking responsibility. For decades, I have not given my flying behaviour much thought either, and found it normal or at best a necessary evil to hop on a plane for every piece of research, conference or seminar.

I will not go into name-shaming, but I know for a fact that some of the front runner developmental institutes and think tanks are not using carbon offsetting for their flights, and have no policy on reducing air travel. Since a few years back, I have tried to reduce my own air travel. I still have an oversized ecological footprint, but I fly significantly less than I used to.

I also—cautiously—try to bring up the topic in conversations with people I work with.  Here some experiences:

1) When preparing a lecture at a development institute in the UK: “Sorry, we are short on budget this year, would you mind taking the plane rather than the train?”

2) A director of a development department in the Netherlands: “Sorry, we are too busy. We will consider introducing a policy next year”.

3) A consultant coming over for an assignment: “Really, is there now a train connecting London to Amsterdam in less than four hours? I didn’t know”.

Two further defences are that people start laughing when I raise this issue, because they consider air travel to be at the core of who we are; or that they point at real polluters, usually big business or an American president. Good points, but my reading of the IPCC report is that all of us need to step up the effort: governments, business, institutions, employees and consumers.

I also know many people that refuse to carbon offset because some offset programmes are open to criticism, or because they find this tokenistic. However, offsetting is a first step. While the IPCC focuses on the devastation of future temperature rises, it is absolutely clear that climate change is already wreaking havoc, especially for poor people in poor countries.

More droughts, floods, fires. More hunger, poverty, and distress migration. It is a core principle in environmental politics that polluters should pay. There are a number of offset schemes that take this into account and use the money they generate for programs that combine livelihoods with mitigation of carbon emission, for example by protecting the vast peat areas in the world that contain huge levels of carbon. If only for this reason, a simple measure such as offsetting every flight you take should not be too much to ask.

But compensation programmes can only ever be a first small step. Next comes sharply reducing the number of flights we take.

Of course, there are already signs of these changes, and best practices are rapidly evolving. I have the feeling that NGOs may be ahead of the game compared to universities and research institutes. We academics may even be worse than the United Nations or some companies. Some obvious things we could do:

  • Some NGOs (like Oxfam – see below) have ruled that travel below xx hours cannot use air travel. I have not yet heard of a single university that sets such rules.
  • No more face-to-face job interviews, where applicants are invited to fly in so that the personal chemistry can be tested.
  • Organise international conferences of study associations every three or four years rather than every year.
  • Get used to teaching and seminars through Skype.
  • Introduce a rule that planes must be booked well in advance to avoid that the only available or affordable ticket comes with three stops and huge detours.
  • Invest more in identifying and fostering local experts to avoid international consultancies.

I’m sure there are plenty more examples, and would love to hear suggestions. Taxing carbon use and investing in green transport systems like fast trains will definitely help to reduce air travel. What we really need, though, is a change of mentality. Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Let’s get ready for an era where flying is the new smoking. It won’t be long before people who fly have some awkward explaining to do over the Friday afternoon drinks after work.

TheaAbout the author:

Dorothea Hilhorst is Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. See other articles by her here and here and here and here