WHO warns of risk to workers from heatwaves
Workers around the globe should be given better protection from extreme heat, with climate change making heatwaves more common, a report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Meteorological Organization has said. The report says that millions of workers are at risk of heat stress, posing a risk to their health as well as their performance. It calls on governments, employers, and workers to co-operate towards strategies to adapt.
While the WHO has previously warned of the risks from extreme heat, this is the organisation’s first report since 1969 that specifically tackles heat stress in the workplace. The findings, it said, should be a wake up call.
“It is not just discomfort. It is a real health risk,” WHO director of environment, climate and health Rüdiger Krech told the BBC. “If you’re working in heat and your body temperature increases by, over a longer period, over 38C, then you are at risk of severe heat-related stress and stroke, kidney failure, dehydration.”
Adaptation is required because heatwaves are no longer a rarity. The World Meteorological Organization says that the last decade has experienced the warmest temperatures on record. 2024, it reports, was the hottest year on record.
Parts of Europe are seeing temperatures of 40 degrees C while parts of Africa and the Middle East are experiencing temperatures as high as 50 degrees. In July in the Mediterranean, average surface temperatures were the warmest on record, being reportedly 26.68 degrees C. The UK meanwhile is on track to have its hottest summer since records began in 1884.
Heatwaves, according to the WHO, are not just harmful to health, but can also affect performance. Its report shows that for every degree above 20C, productivity fell by 2%. Accidents meanwhile increase. In 2023, Swiss national accident insurance fund, Suva, estimated that when temperatures surpassed 30C, accidents rose by 7%, with the cause being concentration issues as workers struggled to adapt to the extreme heat, as well as a lack of sleep.
Countries in Europe are looking into how to adapt to make the workplace safer during heatwaves.
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