On Wednesday, Pierre Masselot received a text from his daughter’s nursery – less than 50 miles from the weather station that was the first this week to break the UK June temperature record – asking parents to collect children early because the school buildings were about to get worryingly hot.
Similar scenes were repeated across Europe this week as the continent swelters through its most severe and widespread heatwave on record – an oppressive force made hotter by carbon pollution and less bearable by repeated failures to prepare for it. France experienced its hottest day and night on record, while the UK and Switzerland both broke their heat records for a June day.
For Masselot, an environmental epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who has become one of Europe’s leading detectives tallying the hidden death toll from heatwaves, the past few days are reminiscent of the terrible summer heat that swept Europe in 2003. While he was too young then to fear for his health, he was old enough to grasp the horrors it held.
Then, the teenager from southern France was bouncing basketballs in the sun at summer camp as brutal August heat turned towns and cities across Europe into ovens. Hot days stressed bodies and warm nights ruined rest. Older people, particularly women and those who lived alone, made up the bulk of the 70,000 victims who died from that summer’s extreme heat.
Now, the exceptions of the past have become the norms of today – and the exceptions of today will soon be the norms of tomorrow. By the time Masselot’s toddler is 14, the same age he was in 2003, global heating will have blown well past the 1.5C (2.7F) target that world leaders promised to keep temperature rises to by the end of the century, and punishing extremes will have hit uncharted heights.
“Climate scientists have been saying for a long time we’ll have a lot more 2003s,” said Masselot, now 37. “Now it’s become painfully obvious this is the case.”
Yet despite repeated warnings and rising awareness, heatwaves still bring large parts of the continent to its knees. Several hospitals in England have declared critical incidents as a result of extreme heat, with cooling units breaking down and critical IT systems stalling, while schools, workplaces and railways have been thrown into chaos and wildfires have broken out. In France, where half of all homes have poor protection from high heat, more than 55 people have drowned while trying to cool down, four young children have died inside hot cars and two nuclear reactors have been forced to close for lack of cooling water.
It's a damning indictment of every European government since 2000. Even now, there are those that want to abandon net zero promises with the excuse that the cost of living is too high for the average citizen. They ignore the fact that it will be higher still in the future thanks to their policies of investing in fossil fuel infrastructure.
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