King's College London

How wealth inequality exacerbates the risks of extreme heat in the UK, and what to do about it

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In the brutal heatwave of July 2022, when the UK experienced temperatures of 40 degrees for the first time, more than 1,000 people died across England and Wales. In our most recent heatwave in mid-June 2025, researchers predicted more than 500 excess deaths in a single day. As climate change continues and such heatwaves become more frequent, death tolls will rise. But will they rise equally across society – or will some individuals and communities suffer more than others?

On 13 June 2025, we partnered with the Fairness Foundation to convene a roundtable of 25 experts in climate and heatwave resilience, vulnerability and inequality to examine how wealth inequality in the UK affects our ability to respond to extreme heat events, and in particular:

• How wealth inequality increases the vulnerability of key groups in society to heatwaves
• How wealth inequality undermines the feasibility and effectiveness of some of the main heatwave adaptation measures
• What we can do to reduce the negative impacts of wealth inequality on our ability to respond to extreme heat, both through targeted interventions and through broader measures to reduce wealth inequality and its impacts on our society and economy

The workshop followed a similar event on wealth inequality and societal collapse, Inequality Knocks, hosted in partnership with the Fairness Foundation in November 2024.