Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported yesterday, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization and the EU climate agency Copernicus said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.
The continent generated 43 percent of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36 percent the year before, the agencies said in their European State of the Climate report for last year.
Photo: AFP
More energy in Europe was generated from renewables than from fossil fuels for the second consecutive year.
The latest five-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3°C above preindustrial levels, compared with 1.3°C higher globally, the report says — just shy of the targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
“Europe saw yet another year of increasing temperatures and intensifying climate extremes — including heat stress with record temperatures, wildfires, heat waves, glacier ice loss and lack of snowfall,” said Elisabeth Hamdouch, the deputy head of unit for Copernicus at the EU’s executive commission.
Copernicus has reported that last month marked the 10th straight month of record monthly temperatures. The average sea-surface temperature for the ocean across Europe hit its highest annual level last year, the report said.
The report focuses this year on the impact of high temperatures on human health, noting that deaths related to heat have risen across the continent.
It said more than 150 lives were lost directly last year in connection with storms, floods and wildfires.
The cost of weather and climate-related economic losses last year were estimated at more than 13.4 billion euros (US$14.3 billion).
“Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by extreme climate events in 2023, which have been responsible for large losses at continental level, estimated to be at least in the tens of billions of euros,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said.
Extreme weather fanned heat waves, wildfires, droughts and flooding, the report said.
High temperatures have contributed to a loss of glacier ice on the continent, including in the Alps, which have lost about 10 percent of their remaining glacier ice over the past two years.
However, the report’s authors also pointed to some exceptions, such as how temperatures were below average in Scandinavia and Iceland even if the mercury was higher than average across much of the continent as a whole.
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