The EXHAUSTION project aims to quantify the changes in cardiopulmonary mortality and morbidity due to extreme heat and air pollution (including from wildfires) under selected climate scenarios.

EXHAUSTION will address key knowledge gaps as listed by IPCC, including the following:

• Published health risk projections do not properly account for adaptation.
• There is a lack of knowledge and appropriate models regarding possible interactive effects of extreme heat and air pollution.
• Quantitative projections of the costs associated with the health risks are suffering from a simplified modelling of the complex relationship between climatic and non-climatic factors, human health, and the socio-economic consequences.

EXHAUSTION will advance on these issues–adaptation, interactive effects, and socio-economic costs – and quantify the changes in cardiopulmonary disease under selected climate scenarios while including a diverse set of adaptation mechanisms and measures, calculate the associated costs, and identify effective interventions for minimizing adverse impacts. The EXHAUSTION consortium is multidisciplinary, encompassing specialists in climate and air quality modelling, cardiopulmonary medicine, epidemiology, health impact assessment, economics, and science communication. Moreover, the Consortium is pan-European, with participation of 14 partners from 10 countries in Europe and representing the territories subject of study in the project.

EXHAUSTION is a EU-funded research project led by CICERO Center for International Climate Research (Norway), and includes 13 other research institutions and partners: University of Oslo (Norway), Norwegian Institute of Public Health (Norway), Aarhus University (Denmark), Helmholtz Zentrum München (Germany), University of Porto (Portugal), National Meteorological Administration (Romania), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK), Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (Luxembourg), Department of Epidemiology of the Lazio Region Health Service in Roma (Italy), Finnish Meteorological Institute (Finland), InfoDesignLab AS (Norway), DRAXIS Environmental S.A. (Greece).