This summer, much of the media’s attention has focused on record temperatures across Europe and the United States. Television coverage has been filled with familiar images: heat maps shaded deep red, schools closing, rail lines slowing, wildfires spreading and emergency rooms treating growing numbers of people with heat-related illnesses.

Public officials have responded with equally familiar advice: stay indoors, drink plenty of water and, if possible, turn on the air conditioning.

Across the world, summer heat could now be deadly unless you can buy your way out. In the United States and Europe, millions of households already struggle to pay their electric bills, and rising temperatures mean they will need to use even more electricity simply to stay safe.

Meanwhile, in much of the global south, we could see human catastrophes as dangerous heat collides with unreliable electricity, overcrowded housing, limited access to air conditioning, weak public health systems and widespread poverty.

In both cases, inequality, within countries and among them, could decide the fate of millions. We know the solutions: help lower-income families afford cooling, invest in resilient infrastructure, and lean into less-costly, more stable clean technologies. The question is whether we have the will.

Extreme heat is the most deadly form of weather. It kills about 2,000 people a year in the US, and Europe’s heat dome killed more........

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