Europe is warming faster than the global average, and the health consequences are escalating. The continent recorded over 62,000 heat related deaths in 2024 alone, capping a decade in which nearly all monitored regions saw a sharp rise in mortality linked to extreme temperatures. At the same time, mosquito borne diseases once confined to the tropics are spreading northward, drought is undermining food security, and outdoor work is becoming unsafe for growing stretches of the year.

These are among the central findings of the 2026 Lancet Countdown on health and climate change in Europe, a comprehensive tracking report that examines 43 indicators spanning health impacts, adaptation efforts, mitigation progress, economic consequences, and societal engagement. Drawing on data through 2025, the report reveals a troubling gap between the accelerating pace of climate driven health risks and the scale of action needed to protect populations.

The report also introduces seven new indicators and extends time series for existing measures, offering an unprecedented view of how climate change is reshaping health outcomes across the continent. It highlights not only the direct toll of heat and extreme weather but also the indirect effects on infectious disease transmission, allergen exposure, and nutrition.

Heat Exposure and Mortality Climb Steeply

Heat is the most visible and immediate health threat. Between 2015 and 2024, vulnerable populations, particularly infants and people over 65, experienced 1.17 billion additional person days of heatwave exposure compared with the baseline period of 1991 to 2000. That represents a 254 percent increase, driven both by rising temperatures and by demographic shifts that have expanded the number of people at risk.

The number of hours when even light outdoor physical activity posed a heat related health risk rose by 88 percent during the same period. In southern Europe, the average person faced 182 hours of unsafe conditions in 2024, more than double the historical norm. Eastern Europe saw the sharpest relative increase, with risky hours jumping by 639 percent, albeit from a lower baseline.

Most striking is the rise in heat attributable mortality. Nearly all European regions monitored saw increases in deaths linked to high temperatures, with an average annual increase of 52 deaths per million people when comparing 2015 to 2024 with 1991 to 2000. The largest increases occurred in southern and southeastern Europe, where summer temperatures routinely exceed historical averages by wide margins.

A new indicator in this year's report tracks daily heat health warnings, which are issued based on the fraction of deaths attributable to heat exposure on a given day. Warnings categorized as extreme, meaning at least 20 percent of daily deaths are heat related, increased by 318 percent over the past decade. These warnings are now routine across much of southern and western Europe during summer months.

Infectious Diseases Expand Their Range

Rising temperatures are also reshaping the geography of infectious disease. Dengue virus, transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, saw a 297 percent increase in transmission suitability across Europe between 2015 and 2024 compared with the 1981 to 2010 baseline. Local outbreaks of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika have become more frequent, particularly in France, where most of the continent's autochthonous cases have been reported.

West Nile virus, another mosquito borne pathogen, poses an escalating risk. Machine learning models show that outbreak risk increased by 473 percent in western Europe, 127 percent in southern Europe, and 108 percent in eastern Europe over the same period. In 2025, more than 1,100 locally acquired human cases were reported, above the annual average for the past decade.

Coastal regions are also seeing new threats. Warmer sea surface temperatures have expanded the area suitable for non cholera Vibrio bacteria, which cause infections through contact with seawater or contaminated seafood. The Baltic Sea and northern European shores experienced a 50 percent increase in suitable coastline over the past decade. Even countries like Italy and France, where high salinity previously limited Vibrio, saw a 31.6 percent increase in favorable conditions.

Climate change has also extended the pollen season by one to two weeks, increasing exposure for people with allergic rhinitis. Birch, alder, and olive trees are now releasing pollen earlier and in some regions more intensely, worsening respiratory symptoms across the continent.

Drought, Wildfire, and Food Insecurity

More than one million additional people across Europe experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023 compared with the 1981 to 2010 average, driven by increased exposure to heatwaves and droughts. The report finds that low income households were 10.9 percentage points more likely to face food insecurity due to these climate shocks than middle income households, underscoring the unequal distribution of climate health risks.

Between 2015 and 2024, nearly two thirds of European regions experienced at least one summer drought classified as extreme to exceptional, and more than two thirds saw an increase in drought duration compared with the historical baseline. Prolonged water balance deficits threaten not only agriculture but also drinking water supplies and increase the risk of waterborne disease outbreaks.

Wildfire smoke exposure, which has stronger respiratory health effects than fine particulate matter from other sources, remains highly variable from year to year. On average, wildfire related air pollution was estimated to cause 1.79 deaths per 100,000 people annually. Economically deprived areas experienced higher wildfire danger, greater smoke exposure, and higher attributable mortality than wealthier regions.

Adaptation Efforts Lag Behind Need

The report tracks national and city level adaptation planning to assess how well governments are preparing for escalating health risks. As of March 2025, 36 of 53 countries in the WHO European region had completed national health adaptation plans and climate vulnerability assessments. City level assessments have also expanded, with 174 out of 209 surveyed municipalities conducting climate risk evaluations in 2023, up from 75 in 2018.

Yet a significant gap persists between planning and implementation. While an increasing number of countries now offer climate services to the health sector, including data products, climate monitoring, and tailored forecasts, the uptake of these services by health authorities remains unclear. Only 42 of 50 European countries reported that meteorological institutes provided climate services to the health sector in 2024, and many of those services are not yet integrated into routine public health operations.

Green space, which reduces heat and air pollution exposure in urban areas, has increased by 3 percent on average since 2000. But economically deprived areas continue to have less access to green infrastructure than wealthier neighborhoods, reinforcing health inequities.

A new heat health early warning system, developed using epidemiological methods, operationally transforms temperature forecasts into daily warnings categorized by the fraction of deaths attributable to heat. The system reveals that warnings in the extreme category have surged across all regions, increasing by 316 percent in southern Europe, 450 percent in western Europe, 198 percent in eastern Europe, and 238 percent in northern Europe between 2015 and 2024.

Energy Transition Shows Progress but Faces Headwinds

Europe has made measurable strides in reducing carbon intensity and expanding renewable energy. The share of renewables in electricity generation reached 21.5 percent in 2023, more than double the 8.4 percent recorded in 2016. Coal use fell to 13.6 percent of total energy supply in 2023, down from 14.8 percent in 2022, and several countries including Germany, Bulgaria, and Poland achieved double digit reductions in coal consumption.

Clean energy investment reached 427 billion euros in 2024, 86 percent higher than in 2015, while fossil fuel investment fell by 32 percent over the same period. Investment in electricity networks, storage, and energy efficiency all grew, though the pace remains insufficient to meet the European Union's target of 42.5 percent renewable energy by 2030.

At the same time, fossil fuel subsidies surged to a record 444 billion euros in 2023, reflecting government responses to soaring energy prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Net fossil fuel subsidies, calculated as the difference between subsidies and carbon price revenue, reached 365 billion euros, dwarfing the 79.1 billion euros collected through carbon pricing schemes. In some countries, fossil fuel subsidies exceeded the entire national health budget.

Air pollution attributable deaths from the power and transport sectors continued to decline, driven by cleaner fuels and stricter emissions controls. However, deaths linked to residential biomass burning increased by 4 percent in 2022 compared with 2000. Solid biomass, classified as renewable energy, accounted for 31 percent of total renewable energy consumption in 2023. Yet biomass combustion releases more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than fossil fuels and emits toxic air pollutants including fine particulate matter and black carbon. The report emphasizes the need to shift away from combustion based residential heating toward cleaner alternatives such as heat pumps.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the health care sector declined slightly in 2022, but the health harms attributable to air pollution from health care operations increased by 24 percent compared with 2010, reflecting the sector's continued reliance on polluting energy sources.

Economic Costs Mount

Climate change is already imposing measurable economic costs. Rising temperatures reduced the labor supply in outdoor occupations by approximately 24 hours per worker per year across Europe between 2000 and 2023 compared with the 1965 to 1994 baseline. Workers in construction and agriculture face the highest risks, as heat exposure makes prolonged outdoor work unsafe.

In southern Europe, gross domestic product per capita growth was 0.99 percent lower in 2021 than it would have been without positive temperature anomalies, a sharp increase from 0.106 percent in 2001. Northern Europe showed no statistically significant relationship between temperature anomalies and economic activity, likely because warmer temperatures in that region remain within a tolerable range.

The monetized cost of unhealthy diets, calculated from diet attributable deaths, increased by 1 percent in 2022, equivalent to 95 billion US dollars. Southern and western Europe saw the largest increases, driven by rising consumption of processed grains, oils, and poultry, which offset the benefits of higher vegetable intake.

Climate adaptation finance targeting the health sector remains negligible. Between 2020 and 2022, European donors approved 13.97 billion dollars for climate adaptation projects, but only 0.07 percent of that total, or 97 million dollars, was allocated to health sector adaptation. The share declined from 0.8 percent in 2020 to 0.6 percent in 2022, even as health risks mounted.

Engagement Declines Across Society

Despite growing scientific output on climate and health, engagement with the issue has stalled or declined across multiple sectors. The number of scientific publications on climate health impacts in Europe peaked in 2023 before falling in 2024, the first decline since tracking began. Most research focuses on impacts rather than adaptation or mitigation, reflecting a persistent gap in understanding how to translate evidence into action.

Public prioritization of the climate health nexus remains low. Only 1.2 percent of respondents in a 2024 Eurobarometer survey identified both health and climate change as top national concerns, down from 3.6 percent in 2021. Health consistently ranks among the top three public priorities, while climate change hovers around fifth or sixth, suggesting that the two issues are largely perceived as separate.

Political engagement also declined. In 2024, only 21 speeches in the European Parliament explicitly referenced the intersection of climate change and health, compared with 66 in 2023 and 91 in 2021. On social media, political leaders, the European Commission, and members of the European Parliament rarely mentioned the nexus, with engagement rates below 0.5 percent across all groups.

Corporate reporting showed similarly weak integration. Among European companies submitting UN Global Compact reports, 88 percent mentioned health and 20 percent mentioned climate change, but only 13.5 percent of climate related reports also included health keywords. The health care sector, which might be expected to lead on this issue, mentioned the nexus in only 47 percent of reports.

Media coverage on TikTok reflected the same pattern. Of nearly 97,000 video descriptions posted by prominent European media outlets in 2024, 21 percent mentioned climate change but only 13.5 percent of those also included health related terms.

One bright spot is climate litigation. Health references appeared in more than half of climate case documents filed since 2011, totaling 11,252 mentions across 561 documents. Engagement surged in 2019 and peaked in 2020 and 2021, driven by cases pursuing health, including mental health, as a key objective. Terms like "climate anxiety" appeared frequently, especially in cases brought by youth and vulnerable groups. The International Court of Justice has determined that states have a binding legal obligation to act against climate change and recognize its effects on human wellbeing, signaling that courts are becoming a powerful venue for framing climate change as a health issue.

A Narrowing Window

Europe has historically led global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and remains on track to meet many of its climate targets if current policies are fully implemented. Renewable energy provided nearly half of the continent's electricity in 2024, and several countries have adopted ambitious plans to phase out coal and expand clean energy infrastructure.

Yet the findings in this report make clear that progress is neither fast enough nor comprehensive enough to protect health. Heat deaths are rising, infectious diseases are spreading, food systems are under stress, and outdoor work is becoming increasingly hazardous. Fossil fuel subsidies are at record highs, biomass combustion is contributing to air pollution, and transport sector emissions remain stubbornly flat.

At the same time, public and political engagement with the climate health nexus is declining, even as scientific evidence accumulates. The disconnect between rising risks and weakening attention suggests that the window for decisive action is narrowing.

Breaking down silos between climate and health policy is essential. Integrated approaches that maximize both climate and health co benefits, such as promoting active transport, expanding green infrastructure, and transitioning to clean heating systems, can deliver immediate improvements while reducing long term risks. Ensuring that adaptation strategies protect the most vulnerable populations, including low income households, outdoor workers, and people living in economically deprived regions, will be critical to building a climate resilient future.

Credit & Disclaimer: This article is a popular science summary written to make peer-reviewed research accessible to a broad audience. All scientific facts, findings, and conclusions presented here are drawn directly and accurately from the original research paper. Readers are strongly encouraged to consult the full research article for complete data, methodologies, and scientific detail. The article can be accessed through https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(26)00025-3