4 minute read
Staff-student dialogue
The effects of heatwaves in the EU
Dr Sylvia Bergh and Shellan Saling discuss their research into the effects of heatwaves on vulnerable populations.
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Sylvia (Sy): With some colleagues from The Hague University of Applied Sciences and ISS, I got a grant from the municipality of The Hague in early 2021. We decided to work on the effects of heatwaves on vulnerable population groups in The Hague. In terms of the policy response, we wanted to investigate what the municipality and other governance levels can do. And then you came along as an MA student and we decided to work together for your Research Paper.
Shellan (Sh): Indeed. I thought your project sounded really interesting.
Sy: For your Research Paper, we focused on the European Union, on the Netherlands and France in particular. Maybe you can tell us about your findings and how the National Heat Health Action Plans differed.
Sh: My focus was on comparing the French National Heat Plan to the Dutch one and comparing these to the wider EU policy response. I think we were both surprised at the results. The EU is supposed to be a leader on climate change, and climate resilience and heatwaves are the leading cause of climate-change related deaths in the EU. Yet from what I found, the response is very limited and there’s not even a common EU definition for heatwaves.
Sy: We were also surprised that the Netherlands had quite a weak plan; little more than a communication plan. People can easily miss the communication and then they simply don’t get the
information they need. In France somebody is designated to deal with this and other governance levels take over if necessary. Precautions and measures are put in place and there is even a list of vulnerable people who need particular care. That’s a big contrast with the Netherlands.
Sh: France’s stricter policy response, its more stick than carrot approach, has to do with the trauma of the 2003 heatwaves during which France suffered the greatest number of deaths. That trauma explains why people in France are cautious and led to the creation a lot of laws; there are a lot of sticks in France’s plan. There are simply no sticks in the Netherlands’ heatwave plan.
What were the most shocking results of your research on The Hague?
Sy: The most vulnerable people are those that we tend to forget such as the elderly living alone. If you cross-reference
loneliness with the heat maps, you can see the overlap: the loneliest people also live in the hottest places and so they’re the most vulnerable. That alone was quite an eye-opener. The other main finding was that these people themselves don’t realize that they’re vulnerable. How can you help somebody who doesn’t realize that they’re vulnerable? That’s a real public health communication challenge. In Europe, we tend to associate warm weather with holidays, when in fact it’s a silent killer. Mediterranean countries have shutters that keep rooms dark and cool but houses in northern Europe, with their large windows, are not really built for climate change.
Sh: Not at all! There are incentives from the government to make homes greener but these aren’t mentioned in the plans.
Sy: We also found research that showed that subsidies in The Hague for green roofs, for example, go to the richer areas because the people living there know how to get subsidies. The other thing that I enjoyed about our project was looking at frugal innovations: looking at what people come up with themselves.
Sh: We also presented our research at a conference organized by the Netherlands Institute of Governance in Utrecht which was very well received. I was the only master’s student on the panel; the rest were all tenured professors but from the feedback it was clear that there was still a lack of knowledge. I found this quite shocking. I wonder why there is a lack of social science research at the EU level.
Sy: I think it has to do with the fragmentation of policy domains. You have climate change, adaptation and even the Green Deal which doesn’t say much at all about heatwaves. And then you have health which is a national sovereignty issue. change in general, because health falls under the national sovereignty of the EU states. One thing that was particularly shocking is that one of the first policymakers to come up with the Heat Health Action Plan in France asked me whether I had contacts for the people who created the Plan in the Netherlands. That just shows that there’s not only fragmentation, there’s also a lack of a network among EU member states when it comes to responding to heatwaves.
Sy: Indeed. And the role of the impact of the research is also important. Our research has been included on ClimateADAPT which is the portal of the European Environment Agency. And we’re also taking advantage of the EUR impact journey. We’re part of a new trajectory involving the private sector and getting existing innovations on the market to the people who need them. We can now really see climate change happening; especially after this summer in Europe, nobody questions it anymore. I’m excited that we were able to work together on this research but there’s so much more to be done.
Sh: I feel like this is a great opportunity to contribute to research. There’s so much physical science research into climate change, but not much social science research. I think this is an exciting time, even though climate change is very scary. We must try to be optimistic and keep trudging along with how we can make an impact.
