‘Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world’; warns environment agency, saying EU not ready to fight climate change dangers
- New report says rising heat and flooding pose a threat to energy, food production systems
- Large numbers would die from heatwaves, and economic losses from coastal floods could exceed €1 trillion a year by the end of the century
Europe is not prepared for rapidly growing climate risks, according to an EU report. Photo: EPA-EFEThe dangers of climate change in the European Union are on the rise and the region is not prepared to battle with extreme heat, wildfires, and worse flooding, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has warned.
The dangers of urgent climate threats “are growing faster than our societal preparedness,” EEA Director Leena Ylä-Mononen said as the agency released a new report.
The first EEA climate risk assessment found that multiple areas, from public infrastructure and finances to health and environment, are in danger, with some in greater peril than previously thought.
“Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world,” the report said. “Extreme heat, once relatively rare, is becoming more frequent while precipitation patterns are changing. Downpours and other precipitation extremes are increasing in severity, and recent years have seen catastrophic floods in various regions.”
The report found that increased drought and rising heat not only endanger crop production in southern Europe but place central European countries at risk too.
Rising heat also poses a threat to energy transmission with heat impacting power lines and droughts affecting energy production in nuclear power plant systems. Flooding could also impact energy production systems in southern Europe.
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Extreme heat also impacts premature deaths, exposing large parts of the population to heat stress, particularly in the European Union’s south.
Ylä-Mononen said that in the summer of 2022, between 60,000 and 70,000 premature deaths in Europe were due to the heat.
It is now so hot in southern Europe that mosquitoes can transmit formerly tropical diseases.
“If decisive action is not taken now, most climate risks identified could reach critical or catastrophic levels by the end of this century. Hundreds of thousands of people would die from heatwaves, and economic losses from coastal floods alone could exceed €1 trillion per year,” the authors of the report wrote.
Effective adaptation measures and increased precautionary measures could help to limit or reduce these negative effects in the future, according to the EEA assessment. The European Union and its member states must work together to tackle climate risks across Europe, including at regional and local level, it said.
The warning comes as the European Commission is set to publish today a strategy to boost the bloc’s ability to adapt to climate change.