France hot weather: Paris is Europe's 'deadliest' city in heatwave

 

student David Flores lives on the top

floor of a Paris apartment block like

many older buildings in the city it's

poorly insulated David says it's

stifling hot in the summer and it was so

unbearable during last year's heat waves

that he was forced to leave

I dunked myself in water to stay cool

the heat gives me headaches last year I

was writing my thesis but couldn't

concentrate so stayed elsewhere I'm a

climate Refugee in my own City

a study in British medical journal the

Lancet says people in Paris have the

highest risk in Europe of dying in a

heat wave partly because it has a large

number of elderly more vulnerable

residents but also a cityscape that

absorbs heat at times it's 10 degrees

hotter in the capital than in the

outskirts

climate change is pushing up

temperatures summers in France are

getting warm and from here it's easy to

see why Paris gets so hot it's very

densely built there are few green spaces

and the old buildings and metals and

grooves are certainly Charming but they

trap heat

a cross-party group of Paris councilors

has raised the alarm it says Paris must

adapt to temperatures that could

regularly reach 50 degrees in the future

we need to take away the bitumen plant

trees paint our roofs in white reform

our buildings take away the cars and

everything that produce heat in the

cities

this shot is a perforated to let air and

light when closed but they can also be

fully opened so you can see the city

Remy Sulu helped design this social

housing project with climate change in

mind Green Space is isolation and

shutters all keep temperatures down

these days it can go above 40 degrees so

we need radically different architecture

to combat heat inspired by Mediterranean

architecture rather than traditional

Paris buildings nearly 3 000 people died

during heat waves in France last year

the highest number since the country's

deadliest summer in 2003 on both

occasions Paris was worse hit unless the

city adapts fast some say it could

become unlivable in Sasha Butler Al

Jazeera Paris