Back in April 2004, in the shadow of the previous European summer, I started work at Downing Street advising the British prime minister on climate change. The 2003 heatwave had killed an estimated 70,000 people across Europe. Many were older people, in homes and neighbourhoods ill-equipped for prolonged heat.

In May this year, I walked through Bordeaux with my 83-year-old mother-in-law in 38C heat. I saw how quickly heat changes the terms of ordinary life. Streets emptied. Shade became essential. The question was not simply the temperature, but whether people could work, sleep or remain safely at home.

That was the European spring. By summer, 42,000 hectares around Gironde and Arcachon surrounding the city had burned. France experienced its worst fires since 1949.

In June, during the Tour de Suisse, the Italian champion cyclist Elisa Longo Borghini suffered heatstroke. She struggled afterwards to remember the final climb. If extreme heat can overwhelm an elite athlete, we should understand the danger it presents to us all.

Europe’s warning is relevant to every Australian city.

Extreme heat is not merely uncomfortable weather. Between 2000 and 2018, extreme heat caused more deaths in Australia than all our bushfires, floods, storms and cyclones combined. Yet it........

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