Overheated and underprepared: How can we shield Europe's most vulnerable?

Four out of five Europeans have been affected by extreme weather. But if we think climate change is everyone's problem in equal measure, the data tell a different story.

In southern and central–eastern Europe, over 85% of people have experienced climate-related disruption, from severe outdoor heatwaves to unbearable indoor temperatures, according to new research by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Eurofound. Wildfires and their smoke were reported by 41% of respondents in Greece, 35% in Portugal and 20% in Cyprus, against a European average of just 8%. The experience of flooding tracks recent flood disaster patterns: nearly 26% of respondents in Austria and 19% in Slovenia reported being affected, compared with an EU-wide average of 11%.  

Concern about the future mirrors this geography. More than 60% of people in southern Europe report deep concern about future temperature extremes. That is more than double the level recorded in northern Europe. In central–eastern Europe, concerns centre on water and food: over half of respondents are worried about access to safe water for daily use, against fewer than a quarter in the north of Europe.

Climate change is not a uniform global crisis: it is an uneven emergency, with different regions facing different hazards at very different intensities.

Where you live shapes your exposure to climate hazards but not the severity of the impact. That depends on the geographies of income, housing and health.

Two people in the same southern European city can experience the same heatwave very differently depending on whether they rent or own, how well-insulated their home is and whether they can afford to run a fan, let alone air conditioning. Nearly 40% of Europeans cannot afford to keep their homes adequately cool during summer heat peaks. For households struggling to make ends meet, this figure rises to over 66%.

Vulnerability extends beyond heat. Low-income households are twice as likely to be affected by wildfires and four times as likely to suffer from clean water scarcities. Renters, lower-income families and people in poor health are simultaneously the most at risk and the least equipped to protect themselves at home. They are far less likely to have shading, insulation, ventilation or extreme-weather insurance, and they are less able to afford the upfront costs of putting these measures in place. They are also less likely to see authority-led adaptation measures reach their immediate neighbourhoods.

Much of Europe’s policy to adapt to climate change still operates on the traditional assumption that citizens are fully informed and fully rational and have equal capacity to navigate bureaucracy and absorb upfront costs.

Decades of behavioural science have shown this picture to be inaccurate. People act on habits, defaults and social norms; they discount future benefits against immediate costs; and when under financial stress, they have less cognitive bandwidth to plan around energy efficiency or insurance, not more.

The traditional tools that governments rely on – regulations, subsidies, taxes and information campaigns – can be effective, but they have limits. They also tend to work best for citizens who are already informed, financially comfortable and able to navigate complex applications, and least well for those whom they most need to reach. A grant structured as post-payment reimbursement assumes the household can pay upfront; a digital-only application assumes digital literacy and time. Individually reasonable, these design choices systematically exclude large groups of the population, especially those who suffer the most from climate change.

This is why policy innovation matters. One of the most promising avenues is to embrace behavioural insights: designing policies that work with how people actually behave rather than how they are assumed to. In practice, that can mean automating eligibility, offering pre-financing instead of reimbursement, or building one-stop support services, shifting the burden from the citizen to the administration.

As climate risks intensify, true resilience will only be built when policies reach the people who need them most.

Image © Eurofound
Image generated by AI (Claude Opus 4.6 and BFL FLUX Pro 1.1 Ultra)