Wed, Jul 01, 2026 page7

• The price of staying cool in Europe

  • By Joe Wertz / Bloomberg
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  The early, intense heat wave sweeping across Europe is testing which systems can still cope — and forcing difficult questions about whether to endure more extreme temperatures or invest billions in adapting to a hotter future.

  The world’s fastest-warming continent is not approaching a single climate tipping point, scientists say. Instead, Europe is crossing a cascade of smaller thresholds all at once: the temperatures at which classrooms close, hospitals come under strain, power grids falter, farm soils dry out and rivers become too warm to cool nuclear reactors.

  Temperatures in Europe have risen by about 0.56°C per decade over the past 30 years, more than twice the global average. Against that steadily warming backdrop, familiar weather patterns such as a slow-moving ridge of high pressure can intensify into a deadly heat dome that researchers say is likely the most severe ever recorded.

  Of course, large patches of the world experience even hotter climates, including in developed countries. However, Europe’s infrastructure, much of it constructed centuries ago, was not built to withstand modern heat waves.

  On parts of the continent this week, the heat has made it uncomfortable to sleep soundly, ride a train, attend a concert, work in a factory, take a test, or have a pint while watching FIFA World Cup matches. Some of these activities have been limited, canceled or banned amid punishing temperatures.

  “We are going to need to make some very significant changes in the way we live,” University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins said.

  Europe’s governments and businesses are getting an early look at how much money it would take to retrofit daily life for hotter summers.

  Heat waves in 2022, when London experienced its first 40°C temperature, cost the city ￡1.5 billion (US$1.98 billion), the mayor’s office said in a new report this week. Upgrading the roughly 1 million homes at high risk of overheating would cost somewhere between ￡9 billion and ￡45 billion — a scale of spending that would require private investment.

  Electricite de France SA is planning to spend 8.7 billion euros (US$9.91 billion) by 2040 for improvements across its 57 nuclear reactor sites, along with hundreds of dams across the country, to ward off heat waves, droughts, floods and severe storms. Those upgrades include new cooling towers for some reactors forced to limit generation when rivers used to ferry heat from the plant get too hot.

  Scientists say those costs reflect a broader shift ahead. Europe is no longer just responding to hotter days, but would need to redesign for hotter nights, warmer waters and drier soils.

  Rising temperatures fuel weather feedback loops that can “charge up” drought by increasing evaporation, causing soils to dry faster and aridity to worsen, said University of Edinburgh climate scientist Gabi Hegerl said.

  “A question that is hard to address is what is the likelihood that severe extremes trigger changes that are hard to reverse,” she said, citing damage to vegetation, worsening wildfire conditions, and the loss of ice and permafrost.

  That is why the comparison with Europe’s historic heat waves only goes so far. Phil Jones, a climate scientist who began his career during the UK’s historically hot, dry summer of 1976, said today’s heat is more humid and less likely to ease overnight.

  “The nighttime minimums are much higher, making sleep more difficult,” he said.

  In the UK and France, where many homes lack air-conditioning, that turns heat from an outdoor hazard into a 24/7 health risk.

  Hawkins said that adaptation would increasingly mean active cooling in homes, workplaces, schools and hospitals — a shift that would raise new questions and tensions about cost, energy demand and inequality.

  Those in poorly insulated homes, apartment blocks or neighborhoods with little green space would face the harshest risks, even as wealthier households are better able to cool themselves, he said.

  That makes Europe’s heat challenge physical and political, he said.

  The danger is that adaptation remains piecemeal while its heat problems become even more systemic.

  “Our society and the infrastructure on which it’s based is built for the climate of the past,” Hawkins said. “It’s not built for the climate of now, and certainly not built for the climate of the future.”
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