Extreme heat is killing people on both sides of the Atlantic, and scientists have connected both events to fossil-fueled warming.

Reuters reported at least 3,700 excess deaths during the June 20-28 heat wave that gripped France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. World Weather Attribution found that climate change made the European heat wave hotter and more likely, with a similar weather pattern now producing temperatures that would have been “virtually impossible” in June 1976 and still “highly unlikely at any time of the year.”

Europe’s lack of widespread air conditioning — which is shaped by its historically cooler climate, higher energy costs, and concerns about rising power demand from cooling — helps explain the death toll, but not in the way right-wing media suggest. 

Much of Europe was built for a cooler climate baseline that no longer exists. As Mark O’Connell wrote in The Irish Times, “Our societies are not built, either figuratively or literally, for the world we now inhabit.” Europe is now the fastest-warming continent, warming more than twice as fast as the global average, and extreme heat is exposing the gap between the climate its systems were designed for and the climate people are now living in.

The American heat wave showed why the story cannot stop at air conditioning. Even though the U.S. has far more air conditioning than Europe, deadly heat is still outpacing the energy infrastructure that keeps people safe.

The New York Times reported that World Weather Attribution scientists also determined that the recent heat and humidity across the northeast U.S. and eastern Canada would have also been “virtually impossible” without human-caused warming, while Axios reported the event killed at least two dozen people, including 22 heat-related deaths in New Jersey. 

Air conditioning saves lives during extreme heat, and more people will need it as heat waves become more frequent and deadly. However it does not solve the underlying danger. Instead, it moves part of the risk onto the power system, which is already being stressed by hotter summers, higher cooling demand, and climate-driven disruptions. During the recent heat wave, the Department of Energy issued an emergency order for PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator, as extreme heat pushed electricity demand toward possible shortfalls.

In addition, widespread air conditioning cannot protect people working outside, people without stable housing, people who cannot afford reliable indoor relief, or people who lose power when demand peaks. The scale of the risk is already visible in the American Southwest. In Maricopa County, Arizona, home to Phoenix, heat killed at least 579 people in 2023, the county’s deadliest year on record. As United Nations climate assessments link rising extreme heat to worsening health risks in the region, more of daily life is becoming harder to sustain safely without major adaptation.

Right-wing media coverage strips this context away. Global warming is making dangerous heat more frequent, but their answer is to attack climate policy while directing people back to the fossil fuel economy that has already made extreme heat worse. More cooling will be essential, but expanding air conditioning alone is not the solution. It will need to be paired with clean power, more energy efficiency, and heat adaptation to mitigate stress on fragile grids and reduce the burning of fossil fuels that are driving these harmful impacts. 

Fox’s coverage turned Europe’s heat wave into a story about air conditioning, energy restrictions, and green ideology.

• Climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg pitted air conditioning against climate action during an appearance on America’s Newsroom. After anchor Dana Perino asked whether “government policies have failed the people,” Lomborg argued that Europe needed “much more air conditioning,” questioning whether governments wanted to help vulnerable people “a tiny bit in 100 years” or help “old and vulnerable people right now.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 6/26/26; DeSmog, accessed 7/7/26]
• The Ingraham Angle called European heat deaths “the true cost of the green energy scam.” Over a chyron that read “Sweating the green agenda,” guest host Charlie Hurt said “Europe spent years treating air conditioning as the problem and now we’re having a reality check,” while guest Lawrence Newport, co-founder of U.K.-based group Looking for Growth, claimed air conditioning is “essentially banned” in “a vast number of homes across this country.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/26/26]
• Fox News host Sean Hannity used Europe’s heat wave to attack “climate alarmism” and European climate politics. Hannity said Europe was blaming U.S. emissions for the heat wave after embracing “socialism” and “radical climate alarmism,” while his guest, Outnumbered co-host Emily Compagno, argued that Europe was making “a ridiculous stance against climate change” rather than protecting elderly people from deadly heat. [Fox News, Hannity, 6/29/26]
• Discussing heat deaths in Europe on The Five, Fox’s Greg Gutfeld suggested “this is a way for Europeans to unload the elderly and blame it on climate change.” Co-host Dana Perino argued that the “so-called science” has been “debunked” and said European officials had a “tool” that could alleviate the problem but “would rather their people suffer and die.” [Fox News, The Five, 6/30/26]
• Hannity blamed Europe’s deaths on “climate alarmism” and an “anti-air conditioner crusade.” He said the “brutal heat wave now gripping Europe” had caused more than 1,300 deaths, “which by the way is all thanks to the climate alarmism and the anti-air conditioner crusade that’s taken place in Europe.” [Fox News, Hannity, 6/30/26]

Fox figures treated the burden of surviving extreme heat as proof that Americans need fewer climate rules, not stronger climate actions to mitigate worsening heat.

• Discussing the European heat wave on Fox News, Environmental Protection Administration head Lee Zeldin portrayed climate policy as a threat to Americans’ access to air conditioning. On America Reports, Zeldin dismissed the idea that Americans should feel “guilt or shame” over air conditioning use and attacked new environmental rules that could leave “grandma” without a working air conditioner during the summer. He added, “There’s no more hoax where we are saying that the world is about to end.” Zeldin ended by claiming Europeans were “seeing the implementation of their standards, and it’s destroying their economy.” [Fox News, America Reports, 6/30/26]
• On Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria, Energy Secretary Chris Wright framed extreme heat-driven stress on power grids as a reason to loosen climate constraints on utilities. Wright said peak demand would test the PJM grid, blamed “the previous administration” for leaving too little capacity, and argued that the Trump administration was “letting utilities run their business” to prioritize reliability and ratepayers over “climate cult gods.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 7/2/26]
• Perino connected New York City’s thermostat guidance to Europe’s lack of air conditioning and blamed “liberals” for weakening the grid. After co-host Greg Gutfeld said New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani was “coming for your thermostat,” Perino pointed to Europe’s heat wave and said that at an European Union building, lower floors “were not allowed to have air conditioning” while “all the fancy people” above them could keep air conditioning. “You start rationing things,” she said, before blaming New York’s vulnerability on “liberals who took away Indian Point” nuclear facility and “only want renewables.” [Fox News, The Five, 7/2/26]
• Hannity defended fossil fuels as the source of lifesaving air conditioning during heat waves. The Fox host attacked New York City’s thermostat guidance as “a small taste of socialism,” saying “the same fossil fuel industry” Democrats want to challenge provides the electricity for “the very air conditioning systems that are protecting all of us from heat waves.” He warned that “new regulations will make everything a struggle” and drive energy bills “through the roof.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/2/26]
• On Jesse Watters Primetime, longtime climate contrarian Marc Morano recast New York City’s heat wave and air conditioning guidance as “climate communism.” After guest host Charlie Hurt mocked New York City’s 78-degree air conditioning guidance and referenced a New York Times report linking the heat wave to fossil fuels, Morano claimed “climate communists” were relying on “scientifically fabricated fears” to “control every aspect of our lives.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/6/26; DeSmog, accessed 7/8/26]

The recent heat waves in Europe and the U.S. show the contradiction in right-wing media's response to deadly heat. They defend the fossil fuel system that is making extreme heat more dangerous, then cast fossil fuel energy as the only practical way to survive it. Their coverage gives audiences a simpler story: The real danger is climate policy, not the fossil fuels driving the heat. But each devastating heat wave makes that story harder to sustain because the crisis they blame on climate action is the crisis climate action is meant to contain.