“Heat-related deaths are estimated to have increased by 94 percent in the monitored European regions, which is a real concern given that Europe is experiencing an increasing number of heat stress days,” the text notes.

It adds that, beyond the challenges that heat waves present to health, there are other extreme weather phenomena that seriously affected people, such as storms, which killed 63 people, and floods and forest fires, both of which claimed 44 lives last year.

On the other hand, the text highlights, climate change caused losses worth more than 13.4 billion euros to Europe in 2023, 81 percent of them due to floods.

In this regard, the European Commission estimated that annual damages on the continent due to coastal flooding might exceed 1.6 trillion euros by 2100, with 3.9 million people exposed to these disasters annually.

jg/arm/ro/cdg