Four dead after record-breaking heatwave sweeps Europe
With scorching temperatures again on Wednesday, Spanish officials said a wildfire in Catalonia had killed two people a day earlier and France's energy minister reported two deaths with a direct link to the heatwave, with 300 others taken to hospital.
Italy issued red alerts for 18 cities because of the extreme heat and Turkey has been tackling wildfires in what meteorologists say is an "exceptional" heatwave because it has come so early in Europe's summer.
The blaze in Torrefeta in the Catalonia region of Spain destroyed several farms and affected an area stretching for about 40 km (25 miles), official said. It was largely contained though more wind and thunder storms were expected on Wednesday.
"The fire was extremely violent and erratic due to storms and strong winds, generating a convection cloud that complicated extinguishing efforts," the fire service said.
Authorities in the Spanish city of Barcelona said on Tuesday they were also looking into whether the death of a street sweeper at the weekend was heat-related.
Spain experienced its hottest June on record this year, and France had its hottest June since 2003, Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said.
Weather forecaster Meteo France said red alerts remained for several areas of central France, but that heat was easing in the west, though intense thunderstorms with possible heavy bursts of rainfall were expected in many parts of the east.
Temperature highs were expected around 39 Celsius (102.2°F), with up to 34 C in Paris, and 36 C to 38 C in Strasbourg, Lyon, Grenoble and Avignon.
In Italy, Florence was expected to bear the brunt of the heat with a top temperature of 39 C during the day. Red alerts were issued in 18 cities, including Milan and Rome.
There was a risk of violent and sudden rain and storms, particularly along the central Appennine mountain region and Sardinia and Sicily.
Swiss utility Axpo shut down one reactor unit at the Beznau nuclear power plant and halved output at another on Tuesday because of the high temperature of river water.
Water is used for cooling and other purposes at nuclear power plants, and restrictions were expected to continue as temperatures are monitored.
Scientists say greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are a cause of climate change, with deforestation and industrial practices being other contributing factors. Last year was the planet's hottest on record.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘A war of the truth': Europe's heatwaves are failing to spur support for climate action
'It's just too much, isn't it?' says Julie, a retiree in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, about the 42C (107.6F) heat that her brother had seen scorch Spain last week. The former local government worker has felt summers get hotter over her lifetime and says she 'couldn't stand' such high heat herself. But like many who experienced Europe's first heatwave of the summer, Julie does not sound overly alarmed. She worries about climate breakdown for young people, but is not concerned about herself. She thinks more climate action would be nice, but does not know what can be done about it. She does not have much faith in the government. 'It's like everything else,' she says. 'I think it's all too little, too late.' As heatwaves engulfed large swathes of Europe and North America last week – the latest in a stream of deadly extremes made worse by fossil fuel pollution – green groups are frustrated that increasingly violent weather has not spurred the urgent support for climate action they had expected. Governments across the rich world continue to roll back policies to stop the planet from heating, while far-right parties that deny climate science lash out at environment rules even as disasters unfold. Their voters, while rarely climate deniers themselves, seem to tolerate their energetic attacks on environmental policy, if not support them. The views of someone like Julie – who declined to reveal her voting preference – sounded similar to what was seen across the country, said Ed Hodgson, an analyst at the research group More in Common who has run focus groups on climate action. Polls taken over the second-last weekend of June show most people in the UK found the previous week of weather too hot, are worried it will get hotter, and hold the climate crisis at least partly responsible. But the nonprofit also found the share of people concerned about climate change has fallen over the past year, dipping from 68% to 60%. Support for the UK's target to hit net zero emissions by 2050 fell even further, plunging from 62% to 46%. 'The issue is really that there are so many other concerns now,' said Hodgson, citing the organisation's data tracking the top issues that people face each week. 'Three years ago you'd have the cost of living first, then the National Health Service, and then immigration and climate – those two would compete for third place. Now, when we do those polls, climate is near the bottom of the list.' The contradictions are visible in towns such as Stanford-le-Hope, where Julie lives, which is among the few already represented in parliament by the rightwing populist Reform UK. A YouGov poll last month found just over half of Reform voters wanted a heatwave in the coming weeks. The party, which has promised to scrap the net zero target and 'unlock Britain's vast oil and gas reserves', is projected to win eight of the 10 most flood-prone constituencies at the next general election, according to an analysis in May by the NGO Global Witness and Round Our Way, a campaign group. Far-right parties across mainland Europe have been even more vocal in using the heatwave to take aim at climate policy, even as blazing wildfires force thousands to flee their homes and doctors warn of widespread excess deaths. In Spain, where the current heatwave brought a record June temperature of 46C, the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, mocked a government promise to regulate fear-based advertising by asking if they were also going to 'ban the propaganda of climate religion'. In Italy, which has limited outdoor work during the hottest parts of the day in most of the country, the Lega party MP Claudio Borghi said: 'Climate change has always existed, the causes are anything but clear, and the solutions are contrary to what … is correct.' Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland co-chair Alice Weidel shared a social media post from a climate sceptic that compared the heat on Tuesday to slightly hotter temperatures on the same day in 1952, as the country was 'clearing away the rubble of war'. The post took a swipe at the World Economic Forum, the German public broadcaster and the Green party. The biggest political row over the heat erupted in France, where the National Rally figurehead, Marine Le Pen, called for a 'major' air conditioning plan – one week after the party failed in its parliamentary push to halt new wind and solar projects. In an opinion article in Le Figaro on Thursday, the interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, a conservative, called to stop support for renewable energy and expand France's nuclear energy sector. The proposal earned rebukes from the ecology minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who described it as 'petty politics' that would write Algeria a check for oil, and the former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who called it an 'incomprehensible' misstep. 'As we endure several days of an unprecedented heatwave, we are witnessing a troubling resurgence of anti-science scepticism,' he said. Some far-right parties have focused their attention on old-school climate denial, while others have moved from questioning the science to aggressively campaigning against solutions. 'I don't think the extreme heat is being weaponised, but the efforts to limit it certainly are,' said Ciarán Cuffe, a co-chair of the European Green party and former Irish environment minister. He added that Le Pen's call for more air conditioning – which he said should be one solution among many – may even represent a shift in strategy. 'It's a recognition that these heatwaves are happening, and that they are extreme.' The paradox is that far-right parties bashing green rules are polling well above 20% in several European countries, even though the share of people who deny climate science is typically in single digits. In the UK, pollsters find just 6% of Reform voters list environmental policy as a reason for voting for the party, according to More in Common. That said, the level of threat perception among their voters is much higher than in other parties, said Hodgson. 'They see threats around them and think we need a strong response. So it makes sense for politicians to campaign around those moments.' Climate campaigners have argued that the far right's success in dominating the climate narrative is weakening support for action and providing centrist parties cover to scrap green policies, even if it has failed to create a widespread backlash against green policy. 'The far right has a strategy but everyone else doesn't,' said Luisa Neubauer, a German activist from Fridays for Future, which staged its first night-time protest against climate inaction outside the German economy ministry on Wednesday, as a result of the high heat. Too many people in power or with platforms 'have not yet understood that we're in a war of language – and a war of the truth – about the climate', she added. 'And too few of us are actively standing in the way of that.'
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
How beavers could become key to preventing droughts
Conservationists are championing river restoration and the reintroduction of beavers as crucial strategies to build landscape resilience against the escalating risk of drought. With two northern regions already in drought thanks to the UK 's driest spring in 132 years, the South West of England offers a compelling case study. Despite receiving only half its average spring rainfall, the National Trust 's Holnicote estate on Exmoor, Somerset, has maintained lush vegetation and thriving wetlands thanks to extensive river restoration work. The estate's 'Riverlands' project, launched in 2020, released beavers into two enclosures and worked to restore the River Aller to a 'stage zero' state – its natural, multi-channelled form with pools and shallow riffles, as it would have been before human interference. This approach, pioneered in Oregon, US, involved diggers moving over 4,000 tonnes of earth and laying hundreds of logs within the floodplain, marking the UK's first attempt at scale on a main river. Thousands of wetland trees were also planted and wildflower seeds sown to attract pollinators, demonstrating how natural solutions can help landscapes adapt to the increasing extremes of climate change. The project to give the river space and connect to its floodplain, completed just two years ago, has created a new natural landscape from once neat agricultural fields, with channels, pools, wetlands and marshes. The wetlands are rich in plants, the young trees are starting to grow and meadows in the floodplain are full of wildflowers. The landscape – along with the nearby beaver wet woodland – slows down the flow of water and holds it in the landscape to reduce flooding and counteract drought, as well as reducing pollution and loss of sediment, the Trust said. The wetlands that have been created are habitat for water voles, as well as an array of birds, insects and fish including eels. Ben Eardley, senior project manager for the National Trust in Somerset, said curbing flooding was a big part of the reason for the project, with communities downstream at Allerford and Bossington suffering from floods in the past. 'But then increasingly, you can see the impacts of hotter dry weather which I think are equally important in addressing,' he said. While some restoration schemes only improve the river channel itself, the work at Holnicote makes the wider landscape more resilient, he suggested. Even after the dry spring, the beaver enclosures, where the animals have created pools, dams and woodland clearings, were still 'brim full' of water, while the restored river catchment stays wet year-round, Mr Eardley said. The denser vegetation acts like a blanket on the soil, holding moisture in and keeping the soil temperature more consistent, he added. 'It's a combination of different things that lead to more resilience. 'And it's not saying that you have to have all of those things everywhere, but if you've got more diverse landscape with a greater mosaic of different habitats. then just by default, you'll have greater resilience,' he said. Farmers and landowners are among those who visit the 'exemplar' river restoration project, which comes amid intense debate over competing uses of land in the UK – for food security, energy production, climate action and to help restore nature and natural processes that can benefit people. Mr Eardley argues that it does not have to be a binary choice between beavers or river restoration and agriculture, but land could be managed to provide both, with benefits for landscapes which are suffering more extreme weather throughout the year as the climate changes. 'You might need to sacrifice some small areas for beaver habitat or whatever. 'But then in that wider landscape you're going to have better, lusher grazing for longer, during those summer months, whereas before, everything would have burnt off,' he said. 'Because you've got higher groundwater levels, your soil and your vegetation are healthier.' Stewart Clarke, senior national freshwater consultant at the National Trust said: 'Water is at the forefront of climate change impacts including flooding and drought, and after a very dry first six months of the year and with many UK regions either in or on the cusp of being in drought conditions, looking after the lifeblood of our landscapes is absolutely vital.' He said that giving rivers more space could create 'nature-rich corridors' through towns and countryside, store water during floods and droughts and give rivers space to adapt to changing flows. The riverlands project is one of a number of schemes the trust had undertaken to 'future proof' rivers, he said, adding: 'The new stage 0 wetland, and the beaver wetlands which it resembles, have created important stores of water and carbon to help in the fight against climate change. 'Over the coming years we aim to create and restore hundreds of such wetlands both for these benefits to people and for the rich wildlife they can support.' And while the Holnicote beavers are currently in enclosures – though prone to escaping – following the Government's recent decision to allow licensed beaver releases into the wild in England, the National Trust is applying to be able to have wild beavers on the estate. Then the beavers could link up with the stage 0 river landscape, and ultimately take over its management in their role as ecosystem engineers.
Times
11 hours ago
- Times
Seine finally opens for public swimming — but mind the rats
Parisians who are brave enough to take a plunge in the Seine as it opens for public swimming this weekend for the first time in a century will be reviving a once popular pastime. Swimming in the Seine became fashionable in the 17th century, when Parisians would bathe in the river, with canvas screens separating men's and women's areas. Paris banned swimming in the Seine in 1923 over concerns about water quality. After a €1.4 billion clean-up before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games last summer, which made it possible to hold some swimming races in the river, city officials have declared it safe. It may still look a little murky, but swimming will be allowed at three designated points in Paris: Bras Marie, Bras de Grenelle near the Eiffel Tower, and Bercy. They have been equipped with showers and lockers, and, with the exception of the Bras Marie site, changing cubicles. River swimming is a pet project of Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, who took a five-minute dip in the Seine herself before the Olympics and deemed the water 'exquisite'. 'Swimming in the Seine is a response to the aim of adapting to climate change,' the mayor said just before this week's heatwave. 'The more temperatures rise, the more we will have to find spaces where people can cool off. This is also about the quality of life.' The authorities say the three swimming areas will be closed if storms wash sewage or waste into the water, or if the currents are too strong. Several Olympic swimmers became ill with vomiting or diarrhoea after competing in open water races in the river, although it was never proved that exposure to the Seine water was to blame. 'The issue of discharges into the river from houseboats and barges has never been settled,' Jean-Pierre Lecoq, the conservative mayor of Paris's sixth arrondissement, told The Times. 'They empty their toilets and the water from their kitchens into the Seine. 'That may not amount to a huge problem, but there's definitely a lot of muck down there, and then there are the rats. The water's too dark to see what's underneath. Personally, I love swimming in the sea but I wouldn't go swimming in the Seine in Paris.' Many Parisians agree with him. 'Never ever would I swim in the Seine,' said Romain Verani, 35, who swims three times a week at a public pool. 'It's too hard to treat the water. The Seine is too big a river to clean effectively. I'd consider swimming in the Canal de l'Ourcq, which has been open for swimming for a few years, because it's more enclosed, like a big pool, so it's easier to filter.' Ninon Le Pennec, 28, said she would not trust the mayor's word that the river water was safe. 'It doesn't look very clean to me.' But Paul Rodier, also 28, was more amenable. 'I'm a bit worried about it but I'd still give it a go,' he said. 'After all, the authorities say it's been cleaned up.' Older Parisians recall with nostalgia how they used to swim in river water in the Deligny, a floating public pool on the left bank of the Seine, opposite what is now the Musée d'Orsay. It was a favourite haunt of the glitterati, attracting Hollywood stars such as Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Errol Flynn. Opinions were always divided, however, about the wisdom of bathing in untreated river water. In 1844, half a century after it opened, the Deligny's water was described as 'dirty, cloudy, often foul-smelling and unhealthy' by Eugène Briffault, one of the founders of Le Figaro newspaper. Filters were eventually installed in 1919 after swimmers complained of muddy deposits in the water. Thereafter the authorities claimed it was safe because the water was continually being replenished. Unfortunately, that also made the unheated pool bone-chillingly cold, although it did offer the advantage of not reeking of chlorine. Many were sad when the Deligny mysteriously sprang a leak and sank in 1993. As a new era begins, the mayor and her supporters are hoping that the sceptics will put aside their doubts and dive in.
