Ten days of extreme heat killed 2,305 people in a sample of 12 European cities last month, with almost two-thirds of those deaths caused by climate change’s intensifying effect on heatwaves, new research estimated on Wednesday.

The early summer heatwave, which sparked wildfires and health warnings from Spain to Turkey, was between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius hotter than it would have been without climate change, according to the study by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

“These numbers represent real people who have lost their lives in the last days due to the extreme heat”, said Imperial College London climate scientist Friederike Otto.

“If we continue to follow the wishes of the fossil fuel industry and delay serious mitigation [emissions-cutting] further, more and more people will lose their lives for the financial benefit of only a tiny rich influential minority,” she told reporters during a conference call.

Separately, a report by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the hottest June on record in Western Europe.

Otto highlighted the researchers’ rapid work in calculating the role of climate change in the overall death toll, which she hailed as a first.

Rapid attribution study

Previously, such research has taken months. A study into Europe’s 2022 heatwave, which found that climate change was responsible for just over half of the 68,000 deaths, was published a year later.

The new study has not been peer-reviewed, a sometimes lengthy process where other scientists evaluate the research, Otto said, adding that the methods it used to attribute deaths had undergone peer review and been approved.

She said publishing studies quickly is important because the immediate aftermath of a heatwave is “when people talk about it”. That is also why the researchers focused on a sample of just 12 cities, she said, making their analysis more manageable.

Previous studies from the World Weather Attribution group, which Otto co-leads, have only estimated how much hotter climate change has made a heatwave. Otto said she wanted to translate this into numbers of additional deaths because a temperature increase of a few degrees Celsius “might not sound very much”.

Otto said the reason the first study like this was carried out in Europe is because scientists have established the relationship between heat and deaths better in Europe than elsewhere. But there are parts of southern Africa, Asia and the USA where this relationship has been established by scientists, she said, so “we will probably do this again in other parts of the world”.

But LSHTM climate professor Malcolm Mistry, warned that carrying out this kind of study across the world would be “very challenging because not every public health authority wants to give out the mortality record reports for research purposes”. This data on deaths is key to establishing how many people are killed by a certain increase in temperature.

Silent killer

The study did not attribute any individual death to climate change and heat is generally not listed on death certificates. Most people who died had health problems exacerbated by the heat, and more than half of them were aged over 85.

Heatwaves are a “silent killer” because the deaths mostly take place in homes and hospitals, away from public view, and are rarely reported, said Pierre Masselot from the LSHTM.

But media reports have blamed last month’s soaring temperatures in some specific cases, such as the death of 48-year old builder who collapsed while laying concrete in 35C heat in the Italian city of Bologna, and a 53-year old woman with a heart condition who died in Palermo. Climate Home has spoken to relatives of people who died during extreme heat in Saudi Arabia and the Gaza Strip.

Otto said that too many media reports about heatwaves include photographs of children eating ice cream and happy people playing on the beach. “That’s a massive problem”, she said, although she added that more articles were now referring to the role of climate change in driving heatwaves.

The researchers behind the study said ways to cope with extreme heat included installing air conditioning, improving government heatwave warnings, planting more trees, building more parks, insulating buildings and painting roofs white.

“But at the end of the day,” said Masselot, “all these measures won’t probably be as efficient as just reducing climate change altogether [by] reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.”

The post Scientists hail rapid estimate of climate change’s role in heat deaths as a first appeared first on Climate Home News.

Scientists hail rapid estimate of climate change’s role in heat deaths as a first

When it comes to the most important thing to curb climate change – moving away from planet-heating fossil fuels – governments have done enough negotiating, and their focus now should be on putting what they already agreed into practice, Brazil’s COP30 president told Climate Home.

That does not require repeating language in new UN texts or even consensus among countries about how to transition from coal, oil and gas, although they could choose to design a roadmap for that energy shift at this year’s climate summit in the Amazon, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago said in an exclusive interview.

“We’ve all already decided that we’re going to transition away from fossil fuels. What can be done in the negotiations is, for example, to decide that there will be a timeline or rules for how this transition will be made – whether it will be one type of country or another, which of the fossil fuels will come first etc,” he said, speaking in Spanish on a video call from Rio de Janeiro.

The comments from Brazil’s top climate diplomat, who is vice-minister for climate, energy and environment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, build on a proposal floated by the country’s environment minister last month in response to a question from Climate Home.

Brazil’s environment minister suggests roadmap to end fossil fuels at COP30

Speaking to journalists in London, Marina Silva said COP30 could result in a roadmap setting out what a “planned and just transition to end fossil fuels” – as agreed at the COP28 Dubai summit in 2023 – should look like.

“Perhaps we can come out of COP30 with a mandated group that can trace the roadmap for this transition,” she added.

Corrêa do Lago noted in the interview that Silva “left it open in her statement whether [a roadmap] will be something negotiated or something that will be built”, adding that “several countries” believe such a plan would first require a formal COP decision to produce one.

The COP30 president emphasised that while this is up to governments, “we can’t keep the world waiting for negotiations to move forward” before acting to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

“It’s not true that it depends on that. There’s already enough approval from countries. Individual countries can do it because implementation isn’t by consensus. Implementation is that each country does what it thinks it can do,” he explained.

The UN Secretary-General and many researchers have argued that implementing the energy transition in a “just, orderly and equitable manner” requires industrialised countries which are historically the biggest carbon polluters to move first in cutting fossil fuels, with developing countries that need to tackle poverty and a lack of energy access following later.

Brazilian officials, for example, when asked about recent auctioning of oil exploration licences have said that global demand for oil is still increasing – and there is a need to debate how to move away from this and other polluting fuels in a fair and organised way.

COP to stay in Belém despite tricky logistics

Brazil has grabbed the spotlight, for both positive and negative reasons, for deciding to hold the annual UN climate summit in the Amazon region, whose forests store massive amounts of carbon but are constantly under threat of being cut down for timber, agriculture or mining.

Corrêa do Lago said President Lula’s “original idea, the symbolism of holding [COP30] in the Amazon, remains very strong” – and he rebutted the idea that part or all of the climate conference could be moved from the Amazon city of Belém due to growing concern about a lack of suitable and affordable accommodation for the more than 50,000 delegates expected there.

The climate negotiations veteran conceded that there had been “several requests and suggestions” about shifting the main talks to bigger and more accessible cities such as Rio de Janeiro – a hotly debated topic in the Brazilian press.

“But the decision is to do it in the best possible way – that is very well, in Belém,” he said.

He added that a long-awaited official online platform to help participants find reasonably priced accommodation in the city is due to be launched on July 15 and he expected more apartments would be made available for rent.

At June’s mid-year talks in Bonn, African nations, small island states and the least-developed countries said they had written to the COP30 presidency warning they might not be able to attend the negotiations due to the high cost of lodgings and travel.

“Regarding the management of hotels and rooms, there has been a positive reaction from the authorities and local population,” Corrêa do Lago said. “Soon, people will realise that the situation is much better than they imagined and that they will want to come.”

This week, the COP30 team announced that construction to expand and improve the Outeiro Port Terminal – where two cruise ships will house around 6,000 delegates – would be completed by mid-October.

Pessimistic outlook for public climate finance

Another pressing issue for negotiators once they reach Belém is where to find more money for climate action in developing countries, to meet the new 2035 goal agreed in Baku last year.

After tense talks, which almost collapsed over the amount rich countries were prepared to put on the table, two key targets were set: $1.3 trillion a year from all public and private sources, including $300 billion raised by donor governments.

Developing countries wanted far more of the headline $1.3 trillion to be public money provided as grants and cheap loans. But Corrêa do Lago said this was unlikely to happen.

“We need to explain the limits of the funds, of multilateral cooperation, and where this money can really come from,” he told Climate Home.

The COP30 and COP29 presidencies are currently working on a roadmap that will outline ways to deliver $1.3 trillion annually in climate finance by 2035, with input requested from finance ministers.

UN expects climate finance roadmap to offer “clear next steps”

The COP30 president said this report – due to be published before the Belém talks – would be “independent”, without “legal value”, and would serve as a basis for further discussions among governments. He emphasised that national needs for finance will vary – and some countries will require more public funding than others depending on how they are viewed by private investors.

Still, he warned against the “huge simplification” that even the core $300-billion climate finance goal could be met entirely from public funding, “especially in the context where a wealthy country has withdrawn and other rich countries are investing in defence”.

The United States under fossil fuel-enthusiast Donald Trump has given notice it will withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement to tackle climate change and has cut off most development aid and climate funding for poorer countries.

While the US technically remains part of the Paris pact until January 2026, and has not quit the underlying UN climate convention, Corrêa do Lago said his team had yet to receive any indication of whether the US government will attend COP30.

The post COP30 president: Transition from fossil fuels can start without climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP30 president: Transition from fossil fuels can start without climate talks

A proposal by the Marshall Islands and Colombia calling for a transition away from fossil fuels at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) failed to make it into the council’s declaration on climate change and human rights issued on Tuesday.

At a meeting in Geneva, the 47 member countries of the UNHRC held annual discussions on its annual resolution which encompasses various issues relevant to human rights, from conflicts to gender and education.

This year, the UNHRC issued a resolution on human rights and climate change, calling on countries to deliver “deep and rapid cuts in global emissions” to minimise climate change impacts. It also urges states to meet the recently adopted $300-billion-a-year climate finance goal by 2035.

On Monday, the Pacific island state and Colombia proposed an amendment calling on countries to achieve emissions cuts “by transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”, replicating the language agreed at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

But after closed-door negotiations, both countries removed the divisive draft proposal, clearing the way for the resolution to be adopted by consensus.

Top Latin American court upholds right to “healthy climate”, urges fossil fuel control

The Marshall Islands’ ambassador to the UN, Doreen Debrum, said during the Council session that her country “places a high premium on collaboration, dialogue and consensus – and we were willing to recognise this by withdrawing our amendment”.

“We look forward to working with all members of the Council – including our co-sponsors and the core group – to ensure this important issue continues to receive the attention it deserves,” she added.

“Frustrating” resolution

Sébastien Duyck, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), welcomed parts of the UNHRC resolution, such as a call for finance to address loss and damage from climate impacts, but said the outcome on fossil fuels was “extremely frustrating”.

“Some of the fossil fuel-producing countries are hellbent on delaying and rejecting any step that will help send political messages recognising the need to transition away from fossil fuels,” Duyck told Climate Home News. “It increases the disconnect between this resolution and the actual policies that we need to see.”

COP30 president: Transition from fossil fuels can start without climate talks

UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights Elisa Morgera said “we can’t talk about protecting human rights from climate change without talking about – and taking urgent action on – phasing out fossil fuels.”

Morgera recently presented a report to the UNHRC about the need to decarbonise economies in order to meet international human rights obligations. The report says the fossil fuel phase-out “should be understood as an important precondition for the right to development and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment”.

Since the adoption of the Dubai deal in 2023, governments have struggled to repeat explicit mentions to the fossil fuel transition in texts adopted by other international summits. Last year, at COP29 in Baku, Saudi Arabia opposed all mentions to fossil fuels in the conference decisions.

Still, for Duyck, the UNHRC debate shows there is growing pressure from governments to call out fossil fuel production at international talks. “This is really becoming a topic in itself. Some countries are no longer willing to keep their head in the sand,” he added.

The post UN Human Rights Council fails to call out fossil fuels after decision cuts mention appeared first on Climate Home News.

UN Human Rights Council fails to call out fossil fuels after decision cuts mention