Barcelona to have highest climate-related death toll in Europe by end of century

Barcelona will be the European city with the highest number of deaths due to rising temperatures caused by climate change by the end of the century, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, ranks the Catalan capital at the top of the ten European cities with the most heat-related deaths, followed by Rome, Naples, Madrid, Milan, Athens, Valencia, Marseille, Bucharest and Genoa.

According to the research, Barcelona is expected to see 246,082 heat-related deaths by the end of the century, compared to 129,716 in Madrid and 67,519 in Valencia.

The report's forecasting models estimate that heat-related deaths could reach 2.3 million in 854 European cities by 2099.

Pierre Masselot, lead author of the study, stressed the "urgent need to aggressively pursue both climate change mitigation and adaptation to rising temperatures."

Masselot stresses that this urgency is "particularly critical" in the Mediterranean region, where "the consequences could be catastrophic if no action is taken."

The various scenarios analyzed in the study consistently show that deaths from extreme heat will far outweigh any reduction in cold-related deaths.

The report also highlights that 70% of these deaths could be prevented "if urgent action is taken".