Europe should brace for more deadly heatwaves driven by climate change, said a sweeping report on Monday, noting the world’s fastest-warming continent was some 2.3 degrees Celsius hotter last year than in pre-industrial times.
Europe should brace for more deadly heatwaves driven by climate change, said a sweeping report on Monday, noting the world’s fastest-warming continent was some 2.3 degrees Celsius hotter last year than in pre-industrial times.
Crop-withering drought, record sea-surface temperatures and unprecedented glacier melt are among the consequences laid out in a report by the World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The continent, which has been warming twice the global average since the 1980s, saw its warmest summer on record last year, with countries including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom experiencing their warmest year on record.
The world has warmed an average of nearly 1.2C since the mid-1800s, unleashing a devastating cascade of extreme weather, including more intense heatwaves, more severe droughts in some areas and storms made more ferocious by rising seas.
Hardest hit are the most vulnerable people and the world’s poorest countries, who have done little to contribute to the fossil fuel emissions that drive up temperatures.
But impacts are becoming increasingly severe across the world, with regions in the northern hemisphere and around the poles seeing particularly rapid warming.
In Europe, the high temperatures «exacerbated the severe and widespread drought conditions, fuelled violent wildfires that resulted in the second largest burnt area on record, and led to thousands of heat-associated excess deaths,» said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
