Where's the fucking snowball now?

3 reasons why Europe can’t stop sweating this week

Climate change, poor infrastructure and distracted politicians all play a role.

By Zia Weise

Western Europe is sizzling under yet another brutal heat wave this week, a harbinger of what global warming has in store for the continent — even as climate change slips further and further down the list of political priorities.

Meteorologists say that temperatures in the coming days will smash records for the month of June in several countries. France is bracing for up to 43 degrees Celsius. Spain could see up to 45 C. Temperatures in parts of the U.K., Germany and Italy could reach 40 C — and all that before peak summer.

In Belgium, where temperatures could hit 37 C, the chief forecaster of the national meteorological office said this could become “the hottest week ever recorded” in the country. 

Nights will also be exceptionally hot, and won’t drop below 25 C in many parts of Western Europe later this week. The lack of a respite exacerbates so-called heat stress — heat that builds up in the body — leading to illnesses and even death, particularly among vulnerable populations such as the elderly. Some 200,000 people across the EU have died of heat-related causes in the past four years. 

For Europeans wondering where to point fingers, here’s why you’re sweating in your homes and workplaces this week. 

1. Fossil fuels

Yes, heat waves have been part of Northern Hemisphere summers since time immemorial. But global temperatures have increased by 1.4 C since humans started burning fossil fuels to power factories, cars and buildings, releasing planet-warming greenhouse gases. 

As a result, we’ve lifted the baseline for summer weather. Scientists agree that every heat wave occurring now is hotter and more likely to occur as a result of climate change. 

Climate change may not have caused the heat dome — a weather pattern trapping warm air for long periods of time — that has settled over Western Europe this week, said Mireia Ginesta, a research associate in climate damages analysis at Oxford University. 

“But it raises the background temperature on which weather systems operate,” she added. “In a cooler climate, this heatwave would have been less intense.”

Europe is also the world’s fastest-warming continent due to a combination of factors, including its relative proximity to the Arctic and changes in regional weather patterns.

And with every fraction of a degree that the planet warms, the heat will get worse; scientists say if global warming reaches around 3 C from preindustrial times, the number of heat deaths in Europe will double or triple compared with 1.5 C.

2. Poor infrastructure 

But outside temperatures are only part of the problem. Europeans spend around 90 percent of their time indoors — in homes, shops, trains, schools and workplaces. 

In much of Europe, and especially in northern regions, buildings are designed to keep heat in, not out. Even now, many new homes are built to withstand winter temperatures, not increasingly hot summer weather. In the United Kingdom, 92 percent of homes are likely to overheat by 2050, according to the country’s climate change committee. 

Plus, while a growing number of European homes have air conditioning, it’s still a rarity: Only about a fifth of households on the continent have AC installed. Even if they do, they might not be able to turn it on: More than a third of Europeans say they cannot afford to keep their homes cool enough, rising to two-thirds among people struggling to make ends meet. 

Offices, schools, trains and public transport in many cities also lack sufficient air conditioning. In France, the heat — and absence of cooling tech — forced the closure of more than 800 schools this week. In Belgium, a fifth of all trains do not have AC at all, prompting the national rail company to cancel peak-hour services. 

While some municipalities have started offering cooling spaces during heat waves — making air-conditioned rooms available to the public — such initiatives are few and far between, and only available during daytime hours, not the sweltering nights. 

3. Distracted politicians

Governments can enact many measures to both reduce planet-warming emissions and protect citizens, infrastructure and economies from extreme weather. But as worsening heat grips Europe year after year, climate change is slipping down the list of political priorities across the continent. 

While the European Union’s plans to curb emissions rank among the world’s most ambitious, governments have placed a greater emphasis on industrial revival in recent years and cut back climate policies seen as harming the bloc’s economic ambitions. The EU’s emissions last year actually rose slightly, pointing to a stagnation in pollution cuts. 

The U.K.’s cross-party consensus on fighting climate change has crumbled, though the Labour government has resisted mounting calls to boost fossil fuel drilling in the North Sea. Whether that stance will survive Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s departure remains unclear. 

In both the EU and the U.K., however, plans to prepare for the inevitable consequences of climate change — such as heat — lag far behind emissions-slashing efforts. 

The European Environment Agency says the 27-country bloc and its governments aren’t protecting their people from extreme temperatures, assessing the threat of heat stress for the general population as critical in this decade, and “catastrophic” from mid-century onward.

The U.K. climate change committee has also described Britain’s efforts as inadequate, and on Tuesday the Green Alliance think tank warned that Brits are “paying the price” for the failure of their government to adapt the country to climbing summer temperatures.

“Right now, children are struggling to finish their exams in sweltering classrooms and the elderly are enduring dangerously hot homes and care facilities with little relief,” said Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London. 

“This heat is not an inconvenience, it is a growing public health threat,” she added. “Every heatwave puts lives at risk, and it’s long past time we treated it with the urgency it demands.”