As a heat dome hovered over Europe last month, it reportedly caused dozens of deaths, disruption of power supplies and public transport, closure of schools and cultural landmarks, and threatened harvests. City living became close to unbearable.

In fact, the death toll is likely to be hugely underestimated as heat may worsen existing illness rather than appear as the sole cause of death. A research paper in Nature in 2025 estimated almost 63,000 heat-related deaths in Europe in 2024 while the Lancet Countdown report 2025 reported hundreds of thousands of people now die globally each year from heat.

Although Ireland sat on the edge of the heat dome, it is clear that Irish cities are no longer immune from hazardous temperatures in the summer. In response to repeated extreme heatwaves, London has developed its first ever heat plan to protect it citizens as temperatures soar. It provides a template for other European cities, including Irish ones to do the same.

Experts say the early season heatwave was part of a broader warming trend. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising about 0.56C per decade since the mid-1990s, more than double the global average. Climate change is making heatwaves more frequent and intense, and likely to occur earlier and later in the year.

Europe is particularly vulnerable – much of its housing and infrastructure was not built for prolonged extreme heat, and only about 20% of its homes have air conditioning. Structurally and culturally, much of Europe was not made for the heat.

Many European cities are........

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