Don’t let alarmists scare you about heat deaths

Across Europe, North America and Asia, the media is now warning of dangerously high temperatures.

This marks the beginning of an annual routine: people in the Northern hemisphere are being inundated with alarming stories about heat domes, heat deaths and heat waves, pointing to the urgency of climate action.

But just like every other summer, this narrative will tell only a misleading fraction of the story.

The impacts of heat waves are stark and immediately visible, meaning they are photogenic and coverage is click-worthy.

Heat kills within just a few days of temperatures going up, because it swiftly alters the electrolytic balance in weaker, often older people. 

These deaths are tragic and often preventable, and we hear about them every summer. But the media seldom reports on cold deaths.

Cold, by contrast, kills slowly—often over months. In low temperatures, the body constricts peripheral blood vessels to conserve heat, raising blood pressure.

Elevated blood pressure is the world’s leading cause of death, accounting for 19 per cent of all fatalities.

The reality is that cold deaths far outnumber heat deaths.

The most comprehensive Lancet study shows that while heat kills nearly half a million people globally each year, cold kills more than 4.5 million, or nine times more cold deaths than heat deaths.

Perversely, global media instead writes nine times more stories about heat waves than cold waves.

We need to know that cold kills vastly more than heat deaths across all continents and most countries.

The US sees more than 80,000 cold deaths each year, vastly outweighing its 8,000 heat deaths.

In Latin America and Europe, cold deaths outweigh heat deaths 4 to 1, and in Africa, cold deaths are an astounding 46 times more frequent than heat deaths.

Even in India—where the Western media has already fixated on extreme heat this year—cold deaths outnumber heat deaths by seven to one.

Global warming

Global warming indeed causes more heat waves, and these raise the risk that more people die because of heat. However, it also reduces cold waves, leading to fewer cold deaths.

The Lancet study found that over the past two decades, temperature increases have caused 116,000 more heat deaths annually but 283,000 fewer cold deaths.

The net effect is a reduction of 166,000 temperature-related deaths each year. It is a travesty that this is almost never reported.

Of course, as the temperature rises, that balance will shift. But a near-global Nature study shows that, looking only at the impact of climate change, the number of total deaths from heat and cold will stay lower than today almost up to a 3°C temperature increase, which is more than currently expected by the end of this century.

One of the most obvious ways to keep populations cool is through cheap and effective city design: planting more trees, adding green spaces and painting black roofs and roads white to make them more reflective.

One study of London shows that this could reduce heatwave temperatures by as much as 10°C.

A Nature study shows large-scale, global adoption of cool roofs and pavements would cost about $1.2 trillion over the century, but will prevent climate damages worth almost fifteen times as much.

Best way

The very best way to reduce both heat and cold deaths is to ensure access to cheap energy.

Affordable energy allows people to use air conditioning during heatwaves and heating during cold snaps. 

In the US, heat deaths have halved since 1960 largely due to air conditioning, despite more hot days.

Affordable heating, enabled by lower natural gas prices from fracking, now saves an estimated 12,500 lives each winter.

The big problem is that climate policies prioritise reducing CO₂ emissions over energy affordability.

Policies that increase energy costs make it harder for people to afford heating and cooling, which can mean more deaths, especially among the poor and vulnerable.

The International Energy Agency’s latest data across 70 countries from 2023 shows a clear correlation between more solar and wind and higher average household and business energy prices.

Countries pushing net-zero climate policies and fossil fuel taxes like Germany have seen energy costs soar.

Three in four Germans say they are worried about whether they can afford the high cost of Germany going green, and nearly 60 per cent shiver in the cold instead of turning on heat, according to a survey by energy group Vattenfall.

A new study shows Germans are 18 per cent less likely to be in good health if they are living in energy poverty.

Unhelpful

While climate change is a real problem, the media’s reduction of this complex issue to sensationalist stories of heat deaths is misleading and unhelpful.

We need policies that prioritise human well-being, ensuring affordable energy for heating and cooling, along with adaptation. 

To tackle long-term global warming, we also need to invest in energy innovation to, over time, make green energy cheaper and more reliable, rather than imposing costly mandates.

Climate activists who argue that taking account of cold deaths undermines the urgency of tackling climate change are simply suggesting that we need to stay badly informed to follow their desired climate policies.

Cold deaths outweigh heat deaths nine-to-one, and higher temperatures are currently reducing total temperature-related deaths.

That the media writes nine-to-one in favour of heat deaths distorts our understanding and promotes ineffective and harmful climate policies. 

The writer is President of the Copenhagen Consensus/Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution/author of "False Alarm" and "Best Things First".