Image: Switzerland Tourism/swiss-image.ch/Christof Sonderegger
Climate change led to over 370 additional deaths. This is the conclusion of a study led by the University of Bern published in the journal “Environmental Research Letters”, as announced on Tuesday. Researchers from Zurich and Basel were also involved.
Studies calculating the contribution of climate change to heat effects are rare. In 2021, an international study that examined the contribution of man-made climate change to heat-related deaths worldwide between 1991 and 2018 attracted great attention. For the hot summer of 2022, which affected all of Europe, there was only one study, the University of Bern noted, the one from Switzerland.
The team led by epidemiologist Ana Vicedo Cabrera based their calculations on so-called attribution studies. These use established statistical methods and climate simulations to estimate the proportion of human-caused climate change in the observed health burden. The study on heat-related deaths comes to different conclusions depending on the region. The urban cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Basel-Stadt and Zurich were particularly affected.
Not all cantons and cities are equally equipped to deal with the heat. According to the study, in Basel and Zurich, for example, there is no systematic and comprehensive public health strategy to combat heat. In western Switzerland and Ticino, on the other hand, action plans were drawn up after the hot summer of 2003. They include, among other things, awareness-raising campaigns and behavioral recommendations. For example, in the cantons of Geneva and Vaud, an even higher heat-related mortality rate could be prevented, said Vicedo-Cabrera.
The epidemiologist also recommends that the authorities optimize the existing action plans to protect against heat. Because, as their study states: “With the current warming rates, a hot summer like 2022 will become an average summer in the coming decades.”
Source: Nachrichten
