Report Highlights
- Home to 70 percent of the people living in Europe and Central Asia (ECA), cities across the region are experiencing a sharp rise in temperatures and an increase in heatwaves. Tens of thousands of heat-related deaths have occurred in Europe and Central Asia in the past two decades.
- Economic losses from extreme heat could reach 2.5 percent of GDP by midcentury in parts of the ECA region without intervention.
- Cities also hold the keys to action. ECA countries can make urban spaces cooler, protect lives during extreme heat events, adapt infrastructure for a hotter future, and embed heat resilience across government.
Cities across Europe and Central Asia (ECA) are getting hotter. The number of hot days in ECA’s major cities could more than triple by 2050. Many will experience more than 40-70 additional hot days per year, especially in Southern Europe and Türkiye.
Tens of thousands of heat-related deaths have occurred in Europe and Central Asia in the past two decades and that figure could double or triple in many cities by 2050, on par with road traffic accidents. Extreme heat events send thousands of people to emergency rooms, overwhelming hospitals and worsening chronic illness, especially for older adults and people living in low-income communities.
Economic losses from extreme heat are on track to reach 2.5 percent of GDP by midcentury in parts of the region. When it gets too hot, machines fail, energy systems strain, and supply chains stall. Extreme heat reduces physical and cognitive performance. It slows down workers, reduces hours, and cuts output, especially in outdoor sectors like construction, transport, and tourism. Extreme heat short circuits and wears down transport systems, intensifies droughts, elevates the risk of wildfires, worsens air quality, and strains power grids. Much of the region’s infrastructure—particularly in Central Asia and parts of Eastern Europe—was built in the mid-20th century and is overdue for renewal.
But cities can take steps now. They can make urban spaces cooler, such as by expanding the tree canopy and developing parks and gardens, protect lives during extreme heat events, such as through early warning systems and cooling centers, adapt infrastructure for a hotter future, including by retrofitting schools, hospitals, and housing for passive cooling and using heat-tolerant materials, and embedding heat resilience across government, such as by incorporating heat risk into adaptation plans, urban development strategies, sectoral policies, and capital investment frameworks.
Emerging solutions show promise. Cities are piloting heat vulnerability indices and using them to direct funds to high-risk areas. Some are embedding heat into transport and housing strategies; others are using performance-based transfers to reward local action. Still, the financing gap remains wide—and without new mechanisms to close it, even the most ambitious plans risk stalling.
Success depends on enabling local action within a broader, well-coordinated system. That means assigning responsibilities clearly, building municipal capacity, and making heat resilience part of everyday governance: from zoning, to budgets, to public health planning.