Blistering heat killed more than 47,000 people in Europe last year, scientists have found. 2023 was the hottest year on record, and the second hottest in Europe, as fossil fuels continue to increase greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. A disaster on a vast scale, the heat-related death toll is nonetheless lower than in 2022, when more than 61,000 people died in Europe, according to the same analysis from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). The researchers also found that heat-related mortality would have been 80 per cent higher last year without the introduction o…