There are lies, damned lies, and statistics

A probable answer is that the data are incomplete or dubious. Saying that 61000 Europeans were killed by heat in 2022, same year when Covid was killing people left and right with every politician trying to hide it under the rug, looks debatable at least.

The graph provided suggests around 120.000 killed for Europe, against 240.000 killed on Asia.

But the majority of deaths by heat aren't even recorded in Asia, and Africa does not even appear. It seems that 380 millions of Hindi suffer heat risk [1]. There are estimates of 30.000 people being killed in five days of May 2026 in the biggest Indian cities.

> "Across the continent, only about a fifth of homes have air conditioning, against nearly 90 % in US"

Different countries use different standards of construction. Comparing houses in US and Europe does not have sense. Europe uses a lot of stone or concrete in places where US would run to put wood instead. Well insulated houses don't need so much A/C or don't need it at all [2]. And is also location based. Nobody will survive the Germany winter with a standard house built in Malaga.

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[1] "Aljazeera. India is being left to die in the heat. Modi has denied climate change for years. Now, as the death toll climbs uncounted, his government offers branding instead of protection" https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/5/22/india-is-being-...

[2] Look at the map, people in Spain was dying in the Mediterranean, but not in the center. The center is hotter. The difference is that touristic houses in the Mediterranean are cheaply insulated, but those in Castilla are built to stand heat and may not need so much A/C or no A/C at all.

Another thing, the "if only those stupid Europeans used A/C like we do in the US they could ignore climate change problems like we do too" seems to be being pushed hard by far-right media in the US. So the issue is at least as much, if not more, a political rather than technical one.