Climate change to reduce life expectancy by 4 years in Spain's Basque Region: report

Climate change could lower life expectancy in northern Spain's Basque Region by up to four years, said a Basque government report carried by newspaper El Correo on Wednesday.

The average life expectancy for men and women in the Basque region is one of the highest in Spain, with 2013 data showing life expectancy of 86.1 years for women and 83.8 years for men.

But the long life expectancy of the region is being threatened by temperature hike due to the climate change, finds the report.

"At the moment, heatwaves have not been an important health issue in Euskadi (Basque region), however, during the summer we could see temperatures rise by three and four degrees given to climate change," reads the report.

El Correo reports that between 1961-1990 only two days a year could be considered to be "heatwaves," but that number is predicted to multiply six fold to an average of 13 days of extreme heat a year during the period 2021-2050, and by the period 2070-2100, the region will suffer 40 days of extreme temperature every summer.

But the report finds that the mortality rate is not expected to rise until 2050 thanks to people's "physiological adaptation," which could lessen the impact of rising temperatures.

However, by the second half of the century, the situation will have changed with the expansion of vulnerable group due to an aging population. Endit