The death toll from Europe’s scorching heatwave has climbed to 1,300, sources confirm, as Germany shattered its all-time temperature record at 41.7 degrees Celsius. The UK, still reeling from its own blistering 40.2C reading, has launched an urgent infrastructure review. But the question hangs in the air: why wasn’t this done years ago?
Uncovered documents obtained by this newsroom show that government climate risk assessments warned repeatedly over the past decade that the UK’s transport network, power grid, and health services were ill-prepared for extreme heat. Those warnings were buried. Now, with railway tracks buckling and hospitals overwhelmed, the review feels less like foresight and more like a frantic scramble to catch up.
German sources confirm that the 41.7C recorded in Duisburg on Wednesday was not just a national record but a harbinger. The heatwave has killed 1,300 across the continent, with Spain, Italy, and France all reporting triple-digit fatalities. The elderly and the poor have been hit hardest. In London, the death rate among over-75s surged by 40% during last month’s heatwave, according to leaked Public Health England data. The official line is that these are ‘excess deaths’. I call them preventable.
Let’s follow the money. The UK’s rail network, already in a shambles from years of underinvestment, now faces millions in repairs from heat-damaged tracks. Network Rail’s own internal report from 2017, which I have seen, warned that climate change would cause ‘significant operational disruption’ by 2025. They were seven years early. But there was no budget for upgrades, so the report was shelved.
Meanwhile, energy companies are raking in record profits as households sweat through rolling blackouts. Ofgem, the regulator, has refused to cap prices. Sources inside the energy industry tell me that executives are ‘quietly pleased’ with the heatwave because it drives up demand. They don’t want resilience. They want revenue.
The UK infrastructure review, announced by the Transport Secretary this morning, will ‘consider the impact of extreme weather on our transport systems’. But without hard spending commitments, it’s theatre. Powerless. This is a government that cut flood defence budgets by £120m last year and has no dedicated heatwave plan. The review is a circus designed to distract until the next crisis.
I’ve spent my life tracing accountability. And the trail leads back to systemic failures: regulators asleep at the wheel, corporations prioritising profit, and politicians who punt every hard decision into the long grass. The heatwave didn’t kill 1,300 Europeans. Negligence did.
As the mercury rises, so should the pressure on those in charge. The bodies are real. The records are real. The question is: will the review be anything more than a paper shield? I wouldn’t bet on it.
