C’est la rentrée! That’s what the “EU bubble”, made of bureaucrats, lobbyists, journalists, and interns, says in Brussels every September. Just not quite yet: before we start focusing on what’s next on the agenda, this press review is about what kept Europeans awake at night over the summer.
It was the heat: a record-breaking one.
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the summer (June-July-August) of 2024 was the hottest ever recorded in the Northern hemisphere, with temperatures 1.54°C above the 1991-2020 average, exceeding the previous record from 2022 (1.34°C). “European temperatures were most above average over southern and eastern Europe, but below average over northwestern parts of Ireland and the United Kingdom, Iceland, the west coast of Portugal, and southern Norway”, notes Copernicus.
While August was the warmest August on record (tied with August 2023) with an average temperature of 16.82°C, 0.71°C above the 1991-2020 average for this month, July set a new record for daily global average temperatures with 17°C on 22 and 23 July, the hottest days on record.
Be afraid: according to Copernicus, the global average temperature for the last 12 months (September 2023 – August 2024) is already 1.64°C above the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900. According to a study published in Nature Climate Change, limiting the increase in global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, one of the goals of the Paris Agreement, is now almost certainly impossible, with a 1.6°C target currently the most optimistic.
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Summers in Europe are becoming unbearable, so much so that the press stopped treating the heat as a simple weather forecast or a “stay hydrated and have fun at the beach” type of story.
In Italy, Will Media is doing brilliant work with infographics on Instagram. This one takes statistics from 2022, when the average number of tropical nights in Italian regional capitals – that is, nights in which the temperature did not fall below 20°C – was 58.
“The fact that the temperature does not fall below 20°C at night has a direct impact on our health: worsening sleep, risk of dehydration and heat stroke,” they write. “Having hotter nights also means increasing energy consumption due to air conditioners, dehumidifiers and fans that remain on more often and for longer.”
Mental health is also made worse, writes Angelo Romano in Valigia Blu: “In recent years, discussions about the impact of climate change on mental health have focused on eco-anxiety, a term that refers to chronic worry, fear, or anxiety about the fate of the planet due to severe climate events. Some less popular research is trying to better understand the effects of climate change, particularly extreme heat, on mental health. Including the latest IPCC report, which found that rising global temperatures have negatively affected mental health in regions around the world.”
The team of young reporters at Will is also trying to present solutions, which is why they are organising a festival called Future 4 Cities. Taking place in Milan on Nov. 28-30, the event is a platform for exchanging ideas on urban sustainability, the best of which will win an award. It’s still possible to apply with yours. An example? Green areas, as this post explains.
Consider also becoming richer: scientists believe that poorer people bear the brunt of extreme heat in Europe. Ashifa Kassam talked with the Spanish researchers behind the 2020 study, for a story about the unfairness of climate change in the Guardian. In her piece, we hear from Julio Díaz Jiménez, an investigative professor at Madrid’s Carlos III health institute, who says: “it’s common sense” and “a heatwave is not the same when you’re in a shared room with three other people and no air conditioning, as when you’re in a villa with access to a pool and air conditioning.” But across Europe, Kassam writes, the conversation has been slow to take off. The journalist also spoke with Yamina Saheb, a lead author of the IPCC report on climate change mitigation, who pointed out that hot weather inflamed by carbon pollution killed nearly 50,000 people across Europe last year.
In El Diario, Raúl Sánchez and Victòria Oliveres compiled a map of record heat in Spanish regions. They blatantly write: “This heat is not normal”. “The current heat is not just a one-day thing,” they add, explaining the meaning of the infamous climate stripes introduced by scientist Ed Hawkins to make the historical trend visible.
But journalists do not restrict themselves to sounding the alarm. In Correctiv, Sebastian Haupt and Elena Kolb prepared a climate quiz ahead of two state elections in eastern Germany at the end of the summer. They provoked the readers: do you know the AfD climate-hostile plans?
Paraphrasing them, what could go wrong if we keep ignoring climate change?
Take America, says Alexandre-Reza Kokabi in Reporterre. A study by Dr Vivian Lyons of the University of Washington in the United States reveals that between 2015 and 2020, around 8,000 shootings could have been avoided in 100 major American cities if temperatures had not been abnormally high. “This observation is not isolated: a vast scientific literature establishes a link between extreme heat, boosted by climate change, and violent behaviour,” Kokabi writes.
“There are two main hypotheses that can explain this correlation. From a physiological point of view, exposure to increasing heat causes our heart rate to accelerate, our blood pressure to rise, and our levels of cortisol—the stress hormone—to rise.
These effects are likely to make people more irritable, impair self-control and decision-making processes, and reduce frustration tolerance. Difficulty falling asleep, exacerbated by the heat, also contributes to a deterioration in mental health and an increase in aggression.
On the social level, the violence correlated with rising mercury highlights the unpreparedness of certain areas for the effects of climate change. Most studies show that the crime burden is even more critical in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. In these areas, crowded housing, often without air conditioning, and the lack of green spaces to breathe, exacerbate tensions and frustrations.”
