Europe Extreme Heat 'We Were Warned' WHO Chief - 1300 Dead from Climate - Driven Heatwave 🔥 [View all]

''We Were Warned,' Says WHO Chief as More Than 1,300+ Dead Across Europe From Climate-Driven Heat Wave, By Jon Qually, Common Dreams, June 28, 2026. Ed.

“It’s time to turn the heat on the fossil fuel giants that caused this heatwave but are doing nothing to cover the costs.”
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The head of the World Health Organization on Sunday said the deadly heat wave now boiling across Europe—which French authorities say caused more than 1,000 deaths last week alone—is the predicted and horrifying result that climate scientists and human rights advocates have been warning about for decades.

In a social post Sunday, WHO secretary-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “Driven by climate change and global warming, the phenomenon of the ‘once-in-a-generation’ heatwave is now occurring nearly annual. We were warned." Citing over 1,300 excess deaths across Europe in the last week—as temperatures broke records in nation after nation—Tedros added that “heat stress is often called the ‘silent killer’— and European homes, workplaces and schools were not built for these temperatures.”

“Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average,” he said. “Right now 150 million people are living under extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools are shut, grids are buckling.” According to the Associated Press: Germany marked a new record for the third day in a row with 41.7 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit) in Neißemünde, near the border with Poland. The Czech Republic also experienced its hottest day ever with 41.1 C (106.4 F).

A new study from the World Weather Attribution, a Europe-based collaboration of scientists, reported Friday that the record-breaking heat and humidity in Europe this past week would not have been possible without climate change. The rapid study found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago, and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago..

The threat of extreme heat related to the climate crisis is not only in Europe.

In 2024, a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that heat-related deaths in the U.S. rose 117% between 1999 and 2023...

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/europe-heat-wave