2/3 of children in Western Europe exposed to extreme heat

The child rights organisation said that the number of children impacted by extreme heatwaves during that six-and-a-half-month period was already three times the figure from the whole of 2025 - and more than any entire year since 2003. 

Save the Children analysed satellite imagery of surface temperatures covering every part of the world. The aid agency defined an extreme heatwave as three consecutive days experiencing a temperature in the top 1% of all those recorded in that location in the previous 30 years. 

The data is particularly stark given the majority of the time period in the analysis covers winter and spring in Western Europe, when temperatures are lower. This suggests that findings for the entire 12 months of 2026 will be even more severe, Save the Children said. 

 In Germany, the number of children exposed to extreme heat in the first six months of this year was larger than the past five years combined. [3] 

In the UK, 10 million children - three quarters of the child population - have been exposed to extreme heat in the first six months of this year. This is more than the total for any single year in the past 30 years. [4] 

Children already affected by inequality or discrimination - such as those living in poverty, refugees or children with disabilities or underlying health conditions - are at a unique disadvantage, Save the Children said. 

  Zainab, 16, a child campaigner with Save the Children UK, said: 

"For many people, particularly those living with chronic illnesses, this heat is not simply uncomfortable, it is dangerous. For some, a heatwave means an ice cream, a day in the park or turning on a fan. For others, it’s dehydration, exhaustion, dizziness and pain. Medication can become harder to manage. Existing illnesses becoming more severe. 

"I know that because I live it. I have lived with Type 1 diabetes for most of my life. When temperatures rise, managing my health becomes harder. My body does not get to experience extreme heat as a minor inconvenience. The climate crisis does not stay outside my window. It enters through my body. Climate change does not affect everyone equally, but when the temperature rises, inequality rises with it." 

Human-induced climate change is making extreme weather events like heatwaves, drought and wildfires more frequent and severe. Save the Children’s findings reveal that across the globe, extreme heatwaves now reach substantially more children than a generation ago. In the 1990s and 2000s, around one in 10 children worldwide [5] were exposed to an extreme heatwave each year. In the 2020s so far, that average has increased to one in seven children [6]. Two of the four worst years since 1990- the start of the period examined - were in the past three years. 

A report by Save the Children and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel last year found that almost a third of the world's children born in 2020 - about 38 million - would be spared a lifetime's "unprecedented" exposure to extreme heat [7] if we can meet the 1.5 degrees C warming target by 2100. 

 The health risks of dangerous heat to young children are acute, due to their ongoing physical development and lower capacity for body temperature regulation. During heatwaves, children are at a high risk of electrolyte imbalance, fever, respiratory disease, and kidney disease. [8] 

 This kind of unprecedented heat is also disrupting children's education. In June, schools in France and the UK were forced to close or alter timetables to protect children from dangerous heat as temperatures surged.

Matilde Angeltveit, Senior Advisor and Global Climate Advocacy Lead at Save the Children, said: 

"Over the past few months, we have seen the climate crisis unleash unbearable heat on children and families across Europe. Heat like this damages children's health, disrupts their sleep and schooling, and brings basic services to a standstill. We also fear that crops will fail and food prices surge due to the heat at a time when families are already struggling to cope. 

"Children are disproportionately vulnerable to extreme heat, yet they have done the least to contribute to the climate crisis. We know by now that we urgently need to adapt to this situation - but children need us to put their lives, rights and needs front and centre. 

"While we need this today, ultimately, in order to safeguard children's futures, we need to see a rapid phase out of the use and subsidy of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy in an equitable and fair way. We know that this is in our power, and if we do it in the shrinking time window available to us, children's exposure to these dangers will be curbed dramatically." 

Save the Children is calling for the recognition of children’s unique vulnerabilities to climate change, the delivery of high-quality, affordable funding to lower-income countries, including financing to cut emissions, and the urgent phase out of the use and subsidy of fossil fuels. 

 As the world’s leading independent child rights organisation, Save the Children works in over 100 countries, tackling climate change across everything we do and putting children at the heart of climate action.  

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