Climate change will cause more heat-related deaths in Netherlands

Climate change will significantly increase the number of heat-related deaths in the Netherlands, even if the world manages to limit global warming to the agreed-upon targets. Should that fail, the number of people dying due to heat-related causes could quadruple, according to a new study of temperature-related mortality across Europe by the European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC), which was published in The Lancet.

Between 1991 and 2020, around 1,054 people died from heat-related causes in the Netherlands per year. If the global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius—the best-case scenario—that number will increase by 16.7 percent to 1,231. At a temperature increase of 2 degrees, around 1,606 (+52.4 percent) people would die from heat in the Netherlands per year.

In the Paris Climate Agreement from 2015, world leaders agreed to do their utmost to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, or at least not more than 2 degrees.

Should that fail, even more people would die from the heat. At a 3-degree increase in average global temperatures, the Netherlands would count around 2,800 heat-related deaths per year, an increase of 165 percent. At 4 degrees, the number would more than quadruple to 4,505 deaths per year.

Throughout Europe, around 407,538 people per year died due to hot or cold weather between 1991 and 2020. Cold weather accounted for the vast majority of the deaths, at around 363,809 per year. Around 43,729 people per year died of the heat in that period.

The number of heat deaths will surge due to global warming but not quite catch up to cold-related deaths, the researchers expect. At a 3-degree increase, the heat deaths in Europe will triple, while the number of cold-related deaths will decline by around 30,106.