Statement – Extreme heat: more deadly weeks may still lie ahead for the European Region

The next heatwave is already building over the Atlantic. Portugal and southern Spain are forecast to reach 43°C this week. France and the Benelux are bracing for another heat surge. Parts of central Asia are baking under 40°C heat.

Because of that urgent context, yesterday I convened an emergency call on extreme heat, which brought together representatives from 41 WHO/Europe Member States, as well as the European Commission and several civil society groups. With more than 130 participants, it was a clear sign of how seriously countries are treating extreme heat as a public health emergency, not just a weather event. The agenda was direct: what did the current heatwave teach us, and are we ready for what comes next?

The answers revealed both genuine progress and gaps we cannot afford to ignore.

What is working

Heat-health action plans save lives. Countries with heat-health action plans in place responded fast, coordinated well among relevant actors and effectively protected their people.

Italy's mortality surveillance system, active in 45 cities, can give decision-makers near real-time data throughout the crisis. Spain worked directly with media partners to improve how heat-health risk is communicated to the public. Austria activated its updated plan, implemented workplace heat-protection regulations, and brought together national and regional coordination structures. In Belgium, the highest alert phase was triggered for only the second time since 2020. France showed how coordination across sectors helped reduce pressure on the health sector and strengthen the wider heat response. North Macedonia partnered with Red Cross and Red Crescent teams to reach people without permanent housing.

These examples matter because they are replicable. The tools exist. The evidence base is strong. When plans are in place and tested before a crisis, they save lives.

What a heat-health action plan actually does

A heat-health action plan is a system linking meteorological early warnings to public health responses, health service surge planning, outreach to groups at increased risk and cross-sectoral coordination between health, occupational health, social care, housing and urban planning authorities.

Countries with well-functioning plans know in advance who is responsible for what, which populations are most at risk and at which temperature threshold each level of response is activated. That clarity, built before any heatwave arrives, is the life-saving difference between a managed response and a reactive one. And it is one that keeps health systems operating without being overwhelmed by heat-related emergencies.

Where the gaps remain

The most glaring gap of all is that not even half of WHO European Region Member States have a national heat-health action plan in place.

Specific gaps named by countries included that many people don't recognize they are at personal risk, even as a Code Red is activated. Others flagged the need for more cooling facilities and better awareness of where they are, including for homeless people and the need for making health-care infrastructure climate-resilient. Some countries still face procedural delays in formally declaring heatwaves, which can slow down public health action.

Across the Region, long-term care residents, homeless people and socially isolated older adults are still not being reached consistently.

What WHO/Europe is doing

We will synthesize the lessons shared and make them available to all 53 Member States. We are providing direct technical support to several countries on immediate needs. And we remain available to every Member State that wants to strengthen its heat-health action plan, improve its implementation or build the cross-sectoral coordination structures that make plans work in practice.

Something else emerged from the meeting that deserves mention. Countries are beginning to connect the dots in ways that matter. Emergency management bodies are sitting down with health policy teams. Urban planners are at the same table as public health officials. Environment ministries are talking to health ministries. That cross-government coordination - built around a shared recognition that extreme heat is a health security threat, not a single-sector problem - is one of the most important shifts we saw evidence of yesterday. It is uneven and needs to be encouraged. But it is happening. And it is exactly the kind of structural change that turns a heat-health action plan from a document into a system that actually protects people.

The work now is on 2 fronts: fixing what failed in recent weeks before the next heatwave hits and building the kind of health systems that don't just respond to extreme heat but are ready for it.

ENDS