How to keep cool

Summary

Today in Focus – Episode Summary

Episode: How to keep cool
Date: July 17, 2026
Host: Nosheen Iqbal (with Ajit Naranjan, Tom Greenhill)

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Overview

This episode of Today in Focus tackles the realities of living with more frequent and intense heatwaves in the UK and across Europe. With practical advice and personal stories, host Nosheen Iqbal, Europe environment correspondent Ajit Naranjan, and heatwave adaptation expert Tom Greenhill explore the science behind staying cool, effective adaptations at home, social inequalities heightened by heat, and the sweeping cultural and governmental challenges of a warming world.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The New Normal: Coping with Relentless Heatwaves

• [01:33] The episode opens with a relatable survey of personal cooling hacks, from wet towels and iced coffees to the infamous air-con collars.
• The UK is experiencing its third heatwave of the summer, and casual tips are quickly giving way to urgent problem-solving.
• “If this is to be our new normal, and the science very much warns it is, how are we going to properly adapt—from our homes to our workplaces, our behavior to our culture?” (Nosheen Iqbal, 02:46)

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2. Adapting Our Homes – The Heatwave Toolkit

Guest: Tom Greenhill – Chartered Engineer, Environmentalist, Creator of the Heatwave Toolkit

• [03:40] Tom lays out simple but science-backed strategies for keeping homes cooler, summarised in three categories:
  • Stop the Sun
    • External shading is the single most effective solution; cheap solutions (white IKEA sheet as rooflight cover) can be surprisingly effective.

      “External shading is super effective… Far more effective than anything you do on the inside.” (Tom Greenhill, 04:07)

    • Shade cloth, an agricultural material, is a DIY-friendly mesh that blocks heat but lets you see out.
    • For renters or those seeking low-budget fixes: clip-on shaded awnings or anti-heat blinds.
    • Creative approaches: applying a thin layer of yogurt to external glazing mimics high-spec frosted glass, dropping interior temperatures by up to 3.5°C.

      “If you do it with a gloss roller … it looks exactly like ceramic fritted glazing, which is a really high specification glazing material.” (Tom Greenhill, 09:12)

  • Let Cool Air Flow
    • Don’t just fling open windows: Only ventilate when it’s cooler outside than inside, preferably at night.
    • Use fans strategically to augment airflow and maximise cooling.
    • Passive cooling is crucial even with air conditioners or heat pumps for efficiency and cost.

      “These passive measures… should all be taken as a first element, because what they'll do is they'll make your air conditioning even more effective.” (Tom Greenhill, 12:04)

  • Slow Down
    • Adjust expectations for productivity and exertion during heatwaves.
    • Employers must set realistic workloads and consider health risks for staff.

      “Your cognitive performance will be low … and we shouldn't expect as much of yourselves.” (Tom Greenhill, 13:16)

    • Adapt routines—exercise in cooler hours, allow for changes in heat sensitivity over time.

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3. The Limits of DIY – Inequality and Collective Action

Conversation shifts to Ajit Naranjan, Europe Environment Correspondent

• [15:18] Europe is seeing record-breaking heat—June was 3°C above normal in western Europe.
• Berlin saw 39°C, Germany’s national record of 41.7°C nearly fell, Vienna hit 40°C for the first time.
• Many solutions—from air-conditioning to tree cover—are costly and unavailable to the most vulnerable.

  “Climate change does not hit everyone equally, and heat is absolutely not an exception to this.” (Ajit Naranjan, 18:24)

• Social inequality shapes who suffers most: workers outdoors, people in poorly ventilated flats, the elderly, children, and those without homes.
• Some cities use “cooling centers” (air-conditioned public buildings with extended hours) as an emergency measure.

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4. Institutional and Government Response

• [17:33] Immediate responses: improved warning systems, public health alerts, school closures, restrictions on alcohol at big events.
• Public cooling interventions: in Berlin, police deployed water cannons for relief.
• Long-term adaptation lags: only some governments incentivize or require heat adaptation, often focusing more on Southern than Northern Europe.

  “If you think about the death tolls we're talking about, the World Health Organization estimates that 200,000 people have died over the last four years in Europe because of heat.” (Ajit Naranjan, 21:44)

• Policy ideas: cooling centers, mandatory maximum workplace temperatures, registration of at-risk populations (per France post-2003 heatwave).

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5. The Outlook: Is Help on the Horizon?

• [25:08] More heatwaves are expected; summer isn’t over yet.
• Next year likely to be even hotter due to a strong “El Niño” effect (26:26) and ongoing climate trends.
• There is optimism that preparation and adaptation—both at home and institutionally—will improve, but progress is uneven.

  “Scientists I've been speaking to … seem fairly unanimous that next year is very likely to be the hottest on record globally.” (Ajit Naranjan, 26:26)

• Adaptation will require both personal agency (DIY solutions) and societal action (policy, urban design, equity measures).

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Memorable Quotes

• “External shading is super effective… Far more effective than anything you do on the inside.”
  —Tom Greenhill, [04:07]
• “Your cognitive performance will be low… we shouldn't expect as much of yourselves.”
  —Tom Greenhill, [13:16]
• “Climate change does not hit everyone equally, and heat is absolutely not an exception to this.”
  —Ajit Naranjan, [18:24]
• “If you think about the death tolls we’re talking about, the World Health Organization estimates that 200,000 people have died over the last four years in Europe because of heat.”
  —Ajit Naranjan, [21:44]
• “Scientists … seem fairly unanimous that next year is very likely to be the hottest on record globally.”
  —Ajit Naranjan, [26:26]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:40] – Tom Greenhill introduces The Heatwave Toolkit and cooling hacks.
• [04:07] – Discussion of effective external shading, including IKEA sheet hack.
• [09:12] – Applying yogurt to glass as a budget-friendly cooling measure.
• [10:27] – The importance of strategic ventilation and use of heat pumps.
• [13:16] – Why slowing down and changing daily routines during heatwaves matters.
• [15:36] – Ajit Naranjan on Europe’s record-breaking heat and government response.
• [18:24] – Exploring inequality and who is most at risk during heatwaves.
• [21:44] – Policy, death tolls, and the challenge of treating heat as a public health crisis.
• [25:14] – Whether we can expect more heatwaves and what El Niño means for next year.

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Tone and Language

The episode interweaves practical advice with urgency and candid realism, balancing light personal anecdotes (“my partner tries to stick yogurt on our windows”) with expert perspective. Nosheen Iqbal’s conversational, sometimes wry tone anchors the worries and solutions in day-to-day reality, while guests like Tom Greenhill and Ajit Naranjan offer accessible technical advice and social commentary.

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Conclusion

Today in Focus’s “How to keep cool” delivers a thorough, actionable, and at times sobering look at surviving—and adapting to—escalating heatwaves. The episode is equally valuable for listeners seeking clever home solutions and those wanting a bigger picture on societal preparedness and equity in the face of climate change.

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Transcript

[Noshi Nikbal]

This is the guardian. Today. Why can't you keep your cool?

[Hannah Berner]

This is Hannah Berner, the co host of Giggly Squad. We could all just stay in bed scrolling through other people's vacations forever. But where is the fun in that? The. The best memories come from stepping outside of your little bubble and being open to the unexpected. And what better way to be open to the unexpected than finally booking that trip to Europe. You guys know I'm a Delta girly. Every time I go, I get my Delta headphones. And when I fly to Europe, Delta treats me like a queen. And they'll treat you too. I was always a little nervous about navigating a foreign country. But then I realized it's so important to grow and see different cultures and to put yourself in different situations. And Delta held my hand the whole time. Being away just helps you put life into perspective. And your little worries are not so bad. Travel really is the best way to discover something new about yourself and grow from the experience. Step outside your comfort zone this summer, get some Delta headphones and fly with Delta airlines. They truly are the best way to get to Europe. And they just make the whole journey feel so comfortable and seamless. Go book your next chapter right [e-mail].

[Noshi Nikbal]

Youm've probably noticed it's really quite hot. And if your office is anything like ours, people are chatting about the weather quite a lot. First is the obligatory icebreaker. Oh my gosh, it's way too hot. And then there's problem solving solutions, personal hacks on how to stay cool, be it dinky handheld plastic fans or those truly abominable air con collars that people are wearing around their necks. Endless iced coffee. Feet in a bucket of cold water, head under a wet towel. We asked around to see if we'd

[Ajit Naranjan]

missed any unbearable I had to buy an air conditioning unit for my bedroom. I use a wet towel around the neck when I'm driving, especially just to keep cool like that.

[Hannah Berner]

My grandmother, who's like very traditional, would

[Noshi Nikbal]

tell me this would get me ill. But I sometimes like, sleep, sleep with

[Hannah Berner]

wet hair because it's so warm and

[Noshi Nikbal]

I have like a fan at me

[Hannah Berner]

and my hair is kind of damp,

[Noshi Nikbal]

so that way I'm not just sweating. My husband is a big fan of opening the windows early in the morning but then shutting them.

[Tom Greenhill]

Fans with ice behind them, things like that. I'm just like, you know, grin and bear it.

[Noshi Nikbal]

You want to stay cool with eating, like with what you eat, because that

[Tom Greenhill]

actually kind of keeps your body temperatures. It moderates your body temperatures.

[Noshi Nikbal]

So things like, you know, cucumbers, like having a salad, ice cubes and cucumbers aside, though, if this is to be our new normal, and the science very much warns it is, how are we going to properly adapt from our homes to our behavior, our workplaces, to our culture, Heatwave experts warn that we've got a lot to learn from the Guardian. I'm Noshi Neqbal. Today in focus, how to future proof against record breaking heat. Tom Greenhill, you're a chartered engineer and a chartered environmentalist. And early on in your career you became a specialist in improving the performance of new buildings in heat waves. You've set up this website called the Heatwave Toolkit. What inspired you?

[Tom Greenhill]

I spent thousands of hours preparing buildings for future climates. If you're going to spend several million pounds on a building, you want it to last. It's going to last for decades. And I realized that the tools that engineers have are ones that are designed for that outlook.

[Noshi Nikbal]

So let's talk through some of the solutions you offer. You've split them into three sections. Stop the sun, Let cool air flow and slow down. First things first, stopping the sun.

[Tom Greenhill]

So the reason Stop the sun is at first is because it's typically the most powerful thing you can do. The important thing is that external shading is super effective. It's really effective and it's far more effective than anything you do on the inside. Often when you watch the weather, they'll tell you to close the curtains. But if you can, if you can access the outside of your window, putting something, anything on the outside of your window, if you can, will be far more effective.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Can I just say, I mean this is familiar because my partner has spent the last few weeks installing all sorts of things at the back of the house because I won't let him do it on the front, but I can confirm it's a lot cooler because of it.

[Tom Greenhill]

It works and it's incredibly effective. The next best thing you can do in terms of stop the sun is if you have any skylights is to shade those first if they are accessible. So for example, some anti heat external blinds or. One of my favorite things somebody sent me this amazing idea is that they realized they had this roof light lantern which was generating so much heat. So roof lights, what's a roof like lantern? Well, it's just an enormous roof light and roof lights and skylights collect so much heat because they see the sun for so much of the day. And so anything you can do to shade a roof light will really help and this person realized that their roof light was the same dimensions as a king size bed. So they went to IKEA. So they went to IKEA, they bought a five pound elasticated sheet and within about 30 seconds popped it on to the top. And what's amazing about that is because it's very thin and it's white, they have fantastic shading, but also beautiful diffuse daylight. Now, actually, that's an incredibly high performance shading product, right, just for five pounds. And so if you're designing an extension, why not size your roof light to Ikea sheets? External shading is really powerful, but it does not have to be expensive and you may even be able to use materials, materials that you already have at home. So you might have spare bed sheets that you could put outside, maybe a towel. Now, that might not feel very elegant.

[Noshi Nikbal]

It doesn't. I can. What do you say to the people, like, I don't really want bed sheets hanging out the front?

[Tom Greenhill]

Well, what's been super interesting, actually, is that a lot of the ideas where people have tested them have been a brilliant gateway to actually investing in something more expensive. I've had a lot of people say there's an amazing material called shade cloth, which is an agricultural material from the US and it's designed to go over polytunnels to stop crops being scorched effectively in the heat. But it's absolutely fantastic because it's a mesh. It enables you to have really good shading but you're able to see through it.

[Noshi Nikbal]

So you'd put it over windows so

[Tom Greenhill]

you can stretch over glazing. It requires a bit of DIY to make it look good.

[Noshi Nikbal]

But a lot of this feels like a bit like a Blue Peter project.

[Tom Greenhill]

There are some Blue Peter projects involved and I think that's the key to it. And I think a lot of these elements are kind of gateways to other things, because actually what you find is, yes, you spend £20 on some shade cloth for your bifold doors and yes, it might not look great for now, but actually that means that you can use that, test it, feel the benefit, and that means that you can upgrade it to something more elegant afterwards.

[Noshi Nikbal]

And what about if you're in rented accommodation and, you know, bifolds are far away from your reality, what then?

[Tom Greenhill]

Every home is different and everyone's going to have barriers to making these adjustments. It might be a security. I used to live on a ground floor flat. Did we want to have the windows open at night? Actually, that felt a bit uncomfortable. And yes, your landlord might not be brilliantly keen on you adapting their home. But what we're trying to do is to show people that actually there are some things you can do and it doesn't have to cost a lot and you can be flexible in how you do it. And now this area is kind of ripe for innovation. There's a fantastic designer called Amy Daniels who's created this really cool shaded awning product which clips on sash windows. You open the sash window a bit, clip it on top, within a few minutes, you've got something that looks really elegant. It's a really good use of material and it will shade your home and that window for most of the day. But it also costs less than £100, and that's dramatically cheaper than other products on the market. I've been trying lots of different things, and one example is the use of these valu anti heat blinds that are fantastically effective. They block something like 80% of the heat, but still allow a view out through. And they cost about £50 each. So they're fantastically good value. With three of these blinds, my loft is exactly the same as my neighbors. His loft was 28 degrees, pretty hot in a heat wave a couple of years ago. Mine was just 22.

[Noshi Nikbal]

And that's the difference between being able to actually be in that room and sleep in it and not.

[Tom Greenhill]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Which brings me, I guess, to one of the more radical ones that you propose, which is familiar to me because my partner keeps trying to insist that we do this and we haven't quite got there yet. Yogurt. Tom, talk to me about yogurt.

[Tom Greenhill]

So anything you can do to that outside of your glass to help reflect the heat or to shade it is really helpful and wasn't my idea. One idea I heard about previously was to paint yogurt on the outside of your windows.

[Noshi Nikbal]

So many questions.

[Tom Greenhill]

So what is fantastic about yoghurt? It is biodegradable. You've probably got some in the back of your fridge. You probably have enough in your fridge right now to coat all of your glazing your home.

[Noshi Nikbal]

It's a very thin layer of yogurt there.

[Tom Greenhill]

It's an incredibly thin layer that you use when you do it and you do it with a gloss roller. It will be very hard for you to realize any difference between that and a frosted glazing product. It looks exactly like ceramic fritted glazing, which is a really high specification glazing material that I specified in roof lights in art galleries in my professional history. And at 2 meters, there's no way you'd be able to tell the difference. Okay, so.

[Noshi Nikbal]

And it washes off in the rain.

[Tom Greenhill]

It will last a heat wave easily. It will actually last far longer than that. It gives a really robust layer. Now, this is pretty wild idea. It's not for everyone. It's been tested in the laboratory. It achieved a 3 1/2 degree temperature difference. So, you know, that is significant.

[Noshi Nikbal]

But yogurt, isn't it going to smell and go sour and go off?

[Tom Greenhill]

If I gave you the roller and I got you a piece of glass and I got you to do it, you would see the moisture in the yogurt evaporate in front of your eyes. You could smell it, and after a few seconds it doesn't smell right. And it works.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Talk me through letting the cool air flow. That's another top tip. And there's ways to do this right that aren't just about just fling open the windows. What do you mean by cool airflow?

[Tom Greenhill]

So what's really important is that in a heat wave, you don't just want to open your windows. You have to do it quite strategically. So it's really important to only open your windows when it is cooler outside than in. So you're only letting cool air in. So you have to be quite strategic. You know, do you want to get a thermometer? Do you want to just do it by feeling? But it's really important so that you wait until, you know, the evening and the temperature drops to then open your windows. So if you're opening up the windows and you can feel the airflow and you can see which way it's going, stick a fan in one direction and help boost it. So when it is nighttime and you've got the cool air coming in, like, try and boost it as much as you can. And that can just be done with a simple desk fan.

[Noshi Nikbal]

And what about when it comes to air conditioning and the discussion around heat pumps, which most people assume are about heating, how does that look in a future UK that is getting hotter and hotter?

[Tom Greenhill]

So heat pumps are a fantastic tool to decarbonise our heating. Now, fantastic side benefit of heat pumps is that they can provide cooling as well.

[Noshi Nikbal]

How do they work?

[Tom Greenhill]

So heat pumps are machines that move heat from one space to another. Your fridge has a heat pump. It moves heat from the inside of your fridge to the outside to those black grills that you'll see on the back of your fridge. A heat pump in heating mode will move. If you have an air source heat pump, for example, it will move heat from the outside air and put that heat through maybe your underfloor heating into your home. Those heat pumps can also be used to extract heat from the inside of your home and put it outside. And that is how an air conditioner works. Now, the really important thing is that these passive measures that we talk about in stop, flow and slow, they should all be taken as a first element, because what they'll do is they'll make your air conditioning even more effective. They'll reduce the sun size of it, they'll reduce the, the noise, they'll reduce the running costs of it. It will make it faster and more effective. You know, this year is going to be the least extreme that we'll ever experience.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Oh, my God.

[Tom Greenhill]

And so people are going to need air conditioning, but it's about getting that right. But also we just need to know that these passive measures that are the

[Noshi Nikbal]

complementary things that can make the air conditioning more effective or just people's lives easier.

[Tom Greenhill]

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, these passive design solutions are not complicated. They don't have to be expensive, but they're so underutilized because we just don'. Understand them. In the uk, you look to other cultures and other places with a much greater experience of heat wave preparation and just used to this climate that we're now living in. And, you know, they adapt themselves brilliantly to it. And that's where we're going to have to get to. And it's just about getting there.

[Noshi Nikbal]

The final section on your website is called Slowdown. Tom, why is it so important?

[Tom Greenhill]

We're going to have to change our behavior and we shouldn't necessarily expect the same from ourselves in when a heat wave is coming. These heat waves are relentless. You can't expect you to be as productive. Your cognitive performance will be low. This has been proven in lots of different academic studies where they've looked at people's exam performance and we shouldn't expect as much of yourselves.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Maybe it's a guidance that should be issued to employers really, and bosses rather than oneself.

[Tom Greenhill]

People are going to be sleeping less. My children are certainly sleeping less. That's causing my sleep to reduce. You know, these things are going to have an impact and it's about slowing down. It's also really important to keep out the heat of the day. You know, that's really common guidance that's provided. But yeah, really it's about don't push yourself too hard. You know, if you want to exercise, if it's a heat wave, maybe this isn't the way to exercise. Maybe give yourself a week off, but actually if you need to, then, you know, go for a run at night instead of during the day because your body respond much better to it. And so, yeah, we're going to need to change your behavior. You know, your heat sensitivity is going to change throughout your life. And whilst last year, you know, you were fine, at some point you're not going to. It's going to take a big impact on you and it's kind of about being realistic about that.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Tom, you've spent thousands of hours thinking about this stuff and it's not for no reason that you're known as the heat wave guy. So I'm wondering how much does traffic on your site spike at times like this and are you seeing it a couple of days before a heat wave or right in the middle and you might think it could be a little bit too late?

[Tom Greenhill]

That's a really interesting question. And I think that it actually reflects the current culture about heat wave preparation because the website spikes during a heat wave and as soon as we do it, there's about a factor of 500 times less traffic afterwards.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Okay. So it tells you everything about our culture.

[Tom Greenhill]

So, yeah, it's a really significant difference. And so these things are easily forgotten and I think that's totally typical of our culture to heatwave preparation.

[Hannah Berner]

You,

[Noshi Nikbal]

Ajit Naranjan, you're the Guardian's Europe Environment correspondent and you've been, it's fair to say, quite busy the last few weeks. We are only in July and the UK is already into its third heat wave. What about in Europe? How hot has it been across the continent?

[Ajit Naranjan]

So Western Europe has been scorched by its hottest June on record. So the air over the month was about 3 degrees Celsius above the average from recent decades. And records have just been broken over and over and over again. I live in Berlin, which is a city in northern Europe that is not known for being very hot. Here in Berlin, we saw two days of 39 degrees Celsius heat just a couple of weekends ago. Temperatures that I've never experienced in my life. Just a couple of hours away on the border with Poland, I visited a village where Germany's national heat record was provisionally broken. So 41.7 degrees Celsius was a measurement at this little weather station in this small little village in the eastern part of Germany.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Wow.

[Ajit Naranjan]

Vienna and Austria hit 40 degrees Celsius for the first time. And plenty of other cities, including Paris, have broken their June heat records, though not necessarily their all time, all year records.

[Noshi Nikbal]

And how are the various local authorities in those instances dealing with the heat and how are they adapting in the short term?

[Ajit Naranjan]

There's not a lot that's going on. I mean, what's been done fairly well, according to kind of a few heat experts I spoke to, is this kind of immediate crisis response. So that means things like issuing red alerts so people are aware of the danger. And remember, forecasting these heat waves has just gotten better and better, so there's much more preparedness when these things happen. Once people are alerted, then it kind of falls on the government to communicate to everyone that they need to adapt their behavior, because you can save a lot of lives just by behaving slightly differently when it does get hot. On top of that, things like closing schools or canceling appointments in hospitals so that there's less pressure on the healthcare system. There's been a lot of that happening across the continent. And so the kind of examples of what you saw governments do over the last few weeks have ranged from, like, on the colorful side of things you've seen here in Berlin, the local police were using water cannons that they normally reserve for protesters as a way to cool people down.

[Noshi Nikbal]

So as relief.

[Ajit Naranjan]

Yeah, exactly. In France, they restricted alcohol consumption during kind of these national festivals, partly because drinking alcohol is a very dangerous thing to do in a heat wave. These sorts of big public events where, you know, people are going to be celebrating, kind of governments putting in place these sorts of policies, relieves the pressure that the healthcare systems are going to face, because they know they're going to get this influx of patients coming in who really are struggling with the heat.

[Noshi Nikbal]

So, Ajit, we also spoke to Tom Greenhill, who created the Heatwave Toolkit website, which is all about telling people how to cool their homes effectively, cheaply, and what have you. A lot of the bigger solutions, from air conditioning to shutters, it's just really quite expensive. And I wonder how much inequality is affecting people being impacted by climate change.

[Ajit Naranjan]

Climate change does not hit everyone equally, and heat is absolutely not an exception to this. When you get these periods of hot weather, you have some people who are able to cool themselves with air conditioning, some people who live in these leafy green neighbourhoods where the actual temperature of where they live is just much lower because there's fewer buildings reflecting heat.

[Noshi Nikbal]

And people know this. You walk through a park on a hot day versus, you know, through the streets. My God, the difference in heat and how much you feel it in an urban environment.

[Ajit Naranjan]

Exactly. And for people who need to work outside, say you're a delivery driver through to people working on farms, people who don't have houses and so are sleeping rough on the street. All of these people are obviously much harder hit when heat waves strike. And in many cases, yeah, there are limits in what you can do as an individual to stop that. At the same time, a lot of what heat experts are saying is that there is still a huge amount that we're just not doing. So I mean, solutions range from kind of the very big picture government policy sort of thing. Like in Barcelona and many other parts of Spain and further afield in Europe, they set up cooling centers. And that can be as simple as turning a library that already has air conditioning into a public space that has extended opening hours where you can get a glass of water, you can use a toilet. And that can be a huge relief for people who otherwise don't have a cool place to turn to.

[Noshi Nikbal]

What kind of precautions are governments taking across Europe to address the disparities between people who can afford the air conditioning and those from lower income backgrounds who can't actively?

[Ajit Naranjan]

I'm not sure if any government is putting that inequality in kind of the forefront of their planning around heat, but it should be said that heat is killing a huge number of people also in these higher income brackets and more privileged people in society. In the uk the latest analysis that just came out a couple of days ago estimated that 2,700 heat related deaths took place in the UK just in May and June.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Right, so these are additional deaths attributed to the heat waves.

[Ajit Naranjan]

Exactly. They're not deaths that you'll see on a coroner's report. They're not listing heat as the cause of death, but they are deaths that we know when it gets hot.

[Noshi Nikbal]

The number of people is exacerbating.

[Ajit Naranjan]

Exactly. And that means that people who are maybe older, whose bodies are a bit frailer, people who've got pre existing health conditions, young people, young children, particularly pregnant women, all of these groups are suddenly at much more risk of heat just pushing their bodies beyond what they're able to cope with. What experts have been calling for over and over again is use air conditioning where it makes sense, particularly to protect the most vulnerable people. So that does mean places like hospitals and care homes. If you do that, then you can reduce death tolls quite considerably. On top of that, the more societal solutions like cooling centers or changing working hours. So having one thing trade unions in a lot of Europe are calling for is to have kind of these maximum working temperatures where if the temperature goes above that, then automatically outdoor work should Cease and people should be able to stay at home and have compensation and so on for that time that they're not able to work.

[Noshi Nikbal]

I guess it's worth mentioning that the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is calling for maximum workplace temperatures. It's also a bill that's being worked on by the very popular Green Party MP Hannah Spencer. But Ajit, when it comes to tackling the heat, governments are obviously responding in different ways. But are some doing it better than others?

[Ajit Naranjan]

Yeah, I think you can say safely that southern European countries such as Spain and France are definitely taking this much more seriously than northern European countries. It feels like the political debate in countries like Germany, where I'm based, is not necessarily the culture war that has kind of been concocted around air conditioning, but more just a political reluctance to confront just how bad this is. I mean, if you look at the death tolls we're talking about, the World Health organization estimates that 200,000 people have died over the last four years in Europe because of heat. Now if you think about the scale of that death toll, it is really, it's hard even for the experts I speak to to wrap their heads around it. In Europe, each year, about 20,000 people die in road crashes. The scale of heat is mind bogglingly large in terms of how many people it kills. And yet we don't treat it for the most part as a public health crisis. But these kind of longer term solutions are still considered radical, right? So things like Paris, which over the last decade or so has made a huge effort to kind of go from a very car centric city to one that pedestrianizes streets and reinstalls green spaces, removes car parking spots. Nobody really in the debates around that in France is saying that much about how this changes as the heat, but it is an important factor.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Coming up, will we be better prepared next summer?

[Hannah Berner]

This is Hannah Berner, the co host of Giggly Squad. We could all just stay in bed scrolling through other people's vacations forever, but where is the fun in that? The best memories come from stepping outside of your little bubble and being open to the unexpected. And what better way to be open to the unexpected than finally booking that trip to Europe. You guys know I'm a Delta girly. Every time I go, I get my Delta headphones. And when I fly to Europe, Delta treats me like a queen. And they'll treat you too. I was always a little nervous about navigating a foreign country. But then I realized it's so important to grow and see different cultures and to put yourself in different situations and Delta held my hand the whole time. Being away just helps you put life into perspective and your little worries are not so bad. Travel really is the best way to discover something new about yourself and grow from the experience. Step outside your comfort zone this summer. Get some Delta headphones and fly with Delta airlines. They truly are the best way to get to Europe and they just make the whole journey feel so comfortable and seamless. Go book your next chapter right [e-mail]

[Tom Greenhill]

from globalization to innovation sustainability to market volatility, there's always more than one side to a story. Explore different perspectives on today's most important business and economic issues with the Flipside podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Hear two research analysts in a lively debate and get insights from every angle. To further inform your view, listen to the Flipside on your favorite platform.

[Noshi Nikbal]

This is the third heat wave, but is this it for the summer? Have we reached the peak of these heat waves?

[Ajit Naranjan]

Almost certainly not. There will be more heat waves to come. I mean, we're still relatively early in the summer, aren't we? Whether or not we'll see a heat wave as strong as the one that we saw in late June, which really was astonishingly hot, scientists were calling it the most severe heat wave in Europe on record. It's unclear whether we'll get to those temperatures again, but I think it's safe to say we can expect longer periods of hot weather, some of which will again be pushing death tolls into these thousands of people.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Well, let's fast forward to next summer. Can you hope that countries across the north and the south of Europe will be better prepared?

[Ajit Naranjan]

In terms of preparedness? Yes, everything from the individuals who'll have bought air conditioning units for their houses through to people who've thought, okay, maybe I should get some shading on my external balconies. But also, we are seeing increasingly governments take this more seriously, develop plans to say, okay, we need to, as well as France did after the 2003 heatwave, to kind of have a register of vulnerable people where they can be called up during a heat wave just to get a little check, just to make sure that they're doing okay. And those sorts of interventions can save lives.

[Noshi Nikbal]

Will next summer, can we expect it will be as hot or even hotter?

[Ajit Naranjan]

At the moment, a natural weather phenomenon called El Nino, which is Spanish for little boy, is forming in the Pacific Ocean. And this pattern, it's a cyclical thing and it increases the temperature. It's associated with a very hot year. Now, this El Nino is set to be a very strong one. It'll peak towards the end of the year and last into the following year, meaning that the scientists I've been speaking to over the last few weeks seem fairly unanimous that next year is very likely to be the hottest on record globally. What exactly this means for European heat waves is still slightly unsure. Strong El Nino doesn't necessarily translate into these horrific heat wave temperatures, but it just adds a bit of extra background warming that could result in such a very, very hot year. All of this is happening against the backdrop of what climate scientists keep stressing, which is this kind of relentless march of year after year. The global average temperature does just keep rising.

[Noshi Nikbal]

That was Ajit Naranjan, the Guardian's Europe environment correspondent. My thanks to him. You can read Ajit's reporting and more from our environment team [e-mail] and that's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Noshi Nikbal. It was produced by Natalie Khattenna and Belinda Gurung. Sound design is by Ross Burns and the executive producers were Huma Khalili and Sammy Kent. And we'll be back this afternoon with the latest. This is the Guardian.

[Hannah Berner]

This is Hannah Burner, the co host of Giggly Squad. We could all just stay in bed scrolling through other people's vacations forever, but where is the fun in that? The best memories come from stepping outside of your little bubble and being open to the unexpected. And what better way to be open to unexpected expected than finally booking that trip to Europe. You guys know I'm a Delta girly. Every time I go, I got my Delta headphones. And when I fly to Europe, Delta treats me like a queen. And they'll treat you too. I was always a little nervous about navigating a foreign country. But then I realized it's so important to grow and see different cultures and to put yourself in different situations. And Delta held my hand the whole time. Being away just helps you put life into perspective and your little worries are not so bad. Travel really is the best way to discover something new about yourself and grow from the experience. Step outside your comfort zone this summer. Get some Delta headphones and fly with Delta airlines. They truly are the best way to get to Europe and they just make the whole journey feel so comfortable and seamless. Go book your next chapter right [e-mail]

[Tom Greenhill]

he's dribbling the ball with everything on the line. He's driving down the pitch. He's facing price hikes and cuts past him carrier contracts, tries to block him oh, he leaves him in the dust. He's at the edge of the box. He cuts past the nonstop group chat, trash talk.

[Ajit Naranjan]

He clears on goal. He shoots no unlimited data for $25 a month forever.

[Tom Greenhill]

Visit your local Boost Mobile store today

[Ajit Naranjan]

to get unlimited data with a price that never changes. Boost mobile after 30gb, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the boost $25 unlim.