Is Europe prepared for a world of extreme heat?

{"text":[[{"start":10.4,"text":"During the extreme June heat, police doused Berliners with water cannons to keep them cool and the Prague fire brigade brought out their hoses. Parisians plunged into the Canal St-Martin. Spaniards sheltered in libraries."}],[{"start":25,"text":"There was a brief respite before Europe’s third major heatwave this week brought temperatures again to 40C in Spain and France, stoking wildfires and putting policymakers under pressure to prepare for increasingly deadly conditions on the fastest-warming continent."}],[{"start":41.55,"text":"As the latest science estimates the global average temperature rise is nearing 1.4C in the industrial era, society will need to prepare for an increasingly extreme climate, experts say."}],[{"start":53.8,"text":"“Europe is warming up at more than twice the global average rate and Europeans are exposed to more heat stress than ever before due to continued burning of fossil fuels,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the EU Earth-observation agency Copernicus."}],[{"start":70.55,"text":"The challenge is urgent: provisional French public health figures show about 2,025 excess deaths in June as a result of the last heatwave, and a continent-wide estimate put the total figure at 20,000."}],[{"start":84.45,"text":"“The most glaring gap of all is that not even half of European region member states have a national heat health action plan in place,” said World Health Organization Europe regional director Hans Kluge after an emergency briefing this week."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":99.4,"text":"EU member states have all adopted national adaptation policies, aside from stated efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra is due to later this year set out a climate resilience plan encompassing the entire economy, officials said, to include building renovation and design as well as adapting transport."}],[{"start":120.5,"text":"The EU is also deploying its biggest ever cross-border wildfire response after more than 200,000 hectares were burnt in a record 2025. Almost 800 firefighters will be positioned strategically across the bloc to support countries across which fires spread. "}],[{"start":137.2,"text":"But most responsibilities lie with national and local authorities — and many countries remain ill prepared. In cities such as Paris, Brussels and Berlin, ageing buildings are not designed to keep out heat. Many densely populated European cities provide little access to green spaces and watercourses."}],[{"start":155.75,"text":"Meanwhile, about a fifth of European homes have air conditioning, according to the International Energy Agency, with vast disparities from just 7 per cent in Germany to almost 80 per cent in Greece."}],[{"start":168.2,"text":"Across Europe, as elsewhere, the poorest are often most exposed. In Brussels, officials said night temperatures were up to 9C higher in densely populated, disadvantaged areas than the leafy southern parts of the Belgian capital, where many of the city’s wealthy, including senior EU bureaucrats, live. "}],[{"start":188.14999999999998,"text":"Ans Persoons, secretary of state for environment and climate for the city of Brussels, promises to subsidise building energy efficiency and kick-start long-delayed plans to enable open-air swimming in the city’s canal and pools, but those will not be ready until 2032. “In Brussels, we do have a lot of open-air swimming pools but they are all in private gardens,” she told the FT. "}],[{"start":213.09999999999997,"text":"Building resilience will come at a huge cost of up to €70bn a year through to 2050, according to the European Commission. "}],[{"start":221.69999999999996,"text":"Over an air-conditioned lunch in Luxembourg during the last heatwave, European climate ministers called for a “business case” to be drawn up for putting in place preventive measures, according to people familiar with the discussions."}],[{"start":235.29999999999995,"text":"One diplomat noted that there was no carrot-and-stick approach similar to the EU’s emission trading system, which has pushed industries to cut emissions by placing a cost on carbon."}],[{"start":245.29999999999995,"text":"But doing nothing would be more expensive still: damages from climate change through floods, drought and fires, and lost economic activity, reached about €90bn in 2025, the official warned, and greater casualties this summer, prompting politicians at national and local levels to prepare a patchwork of protective measures."}],[{"start":267.49999999999994,"text":"Ian Johnston in Brussels"}],[{"start":270.19999999999993,"text":"Madrid: retreat to the cooler indoors and fire-watch"}],[{"start":274.1499999999999,"text":"Spain is long accustomed to the beating hot sun but its national and regional governments are still scrambling to adapt to recent spikes in heat and outbreaks of wildfires. "}],[{"start":285.74999999999994,"text":"Following devastating blazes last year, the government brought forward the start of an annual fire-prevention campaign to January from June and added new planes, helicopters, drones and all-terrain vehicles to its firefighting force."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":301.44999999999993,"text":"The energy and environment ministry updated an existing climate change adaptation plan last month, with a proposal to create more green and shaded areas. It said last week it would also provide €200mn from a national energy efficiency fund to upgrade heating and cooling in schools."}],[{"start":320.74999999999994,"text":"In Barcelona, the council is using funds from a tourist tax to install air conditioning in hundreds of its schools. It has also issued “alert bracelets” to 1400 cleaners, gardeners and other outdoor workers to monitor for thermal stress."}],[{"start":335.49999999999994,"text":"City councils are turning public spaces such as libraries and sports centres into “climate shelters”. Madrid even offers free movie screenings, concerts and flamenco shows in cooled indoor venues to draw those without home air conditioning."}],[{"start":350.84999999999997,"text":"Carmen Muela in Madrid"}],[{"start":352.84999999999997,"text":"Rome: embrace the Caribbean climate"}],[{"start":355.79999999999995,"text":"When Italy’s health ministry issued a red alert for the heatwave in 18 cities two weeks ago, Ignazio La Russa, the president of the Senate and co-founder of President Giorgia Meloni’s ruling Brothers of Italy party, dismissed the effects of climate change on Italians. Meloni said nothing on the topic at all."}],[{"start":376.04999999999995,"text":"“Many say about climate change, ‘Oh God, a Caribbean climate is coming to Europe, right,’” said La Russa. “Well, OK, but the Caribbean has lived with this climate for a long time, and it’s surviving. That means we’ll get used to the Caribbean climate. It doesn’t mean we’ll all die.” "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":393.04999999999995,"text":"The rhetoric speaks to the policy approach, critics say. Italy approved a thorough climate change adaptation plan in 2023 to help city dwellers cope with extreme heat but has done little to implement it. "}],[{"start":405.54999999999995,"text":"“This plan today is basically on the shelf,” said Mariateresa Imparato, head of climate justice for Legambiente, Italy’s largest national environmental group."}],[{"start":415.69999999999993,"text":"While Italy’s historic city centres were typically built with heat in mind, Imparato said most newer and less wealthy neighbourhoods were ill-prepared. “Urban greenery is lacking; where there are green spaces, they are not maintained, or they are inaccessible. Even trivial things, such as bus and subway shelters, are not shaded.”"}],[{"start":435.5999999999999,"text":"Amy Kazmin in Rome"}],[{"start":438.6499999999999,"text":"Berlin: flee to the lakes"}],[{"start":441.0499999999999,"text":"Temperatures in Berlin exceeded 41C for a new June record, prompting many Berliners to flee to the lakes and shores. While there were 21 days above 30C between 2018 and 2024 in the German capital, the number will reach 40 in 2080 if climate change continues unabated, according to World Bank estimates."}],[{"start":465.0499999999999,"text":"But the city only introduced its first heat strategy at the end of last year, more than two decades after Paris implemented one following its deadly 2003 heatwave. Goals include planting trees, installing drinking fountains and creating more heat-resistant buildings. Mapping of cool places remains incomplete. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":484.5999999999999,"text":"Experts say the country at large is not prepared for higher temperatures. The federal system, dividing Germany into 16 different states, prevents a united heat strategy. Only seven out of the 16 have a heat-protection plan for municipalities. "}],[{"start":500.5499999999999,"text":"Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government has committed to investing about €10bn a year for climate resilience over the next decade. But practical implementation often lies in the responsibility of the municipalities, many of which struggle with staffing and capacity to deliver, climate scientist Anne Zimmer said."}],[{"start":519.05,"text":"Merz’s plans to introduce climate adaptation in the constitution would enable federal contribution to financing heat protection measures but this requires difficult negotiations to gain a majority in the parliament and national council. A climate ministry spokesperson said: “A very long preparation period is required, and that is something we have to accept.”"}],[{"start":542.3499999999999,"text":"Meanwhile, “healthcare costs, mortality rates, workplace absence and infrastructure damage will rise”, if preventive measures aren’t implemented effectively, said energy and climate economist Professor Claudia Kemfert."}],[{"start":556.2499999999999,"text":"Aysun Bora in Berlin"}],[{"start":559.2999999999998,"text":"Paris: rush for the aircon"}],[{"start":561.7499999999999,"text":"When temperatures hit a record 40C in June, it triggered a political battle over why the country was so unprepared for the changing climate. "}],[{"start":570.6499999999999,"text":"The far-right Rassemblement National, in a reversal from their once sceptical climate change stance, called for a massive national plan to install air conditioning in places like schools, hospitals and care homes. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":583.8499999999999,"text":"The RN has slammed both President Emmanuel Macron’s successive governments for not favouring installation of cooling methods and the leftist parties for their opposition to air conditioning and advocacy of solutions such as planting trees and installing shutters. Even the Green party, which had dismissed air conditioning as “maladaptive” in its platform, admitted it was needed."}],[{"start":605.8999999999999,"text":"Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has said air conditioning can be a part of the solution but not “an automatic response” given its cost. Still, he rushed to order €100mn in cooling units and fans for hospitals and instructed postal workers to check on isolated individuals at home."}],[{"start":624.4999999999999,"text":"France is also reckoning with buildings that are hard to modernise, with strict rules to preserve its historic cities. Almost all of Paris, with the famous zinc and metal rooftops of its Haussmannian skyline, is subject to such restrictions, which often lead to authorities rejecting even low-tech solutions such as shutters. "}],[{"start":643.2999999999998,"text":"In the recent heat, most of the elderly died at home and not in care homes, unlike the historic 2003 heatwave that killed about 15,000, leading the government to argue progress has been made since then."}],[{"start":656.1999999999998,"text":"Leila Abboud in Paris"}],[{"start":658.4499999999998,"text":"Zurich: pump cold water from the lake"}],[{"start":661.2499999999998,"text":"Switzerland is warming faster than the rest of Europe and more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, in large part as the melt of its glaciers and snow exposes more dark ground that absorbs the sun’s rays."}],[{"start":673.7999999999997,"text":"In response, its authorities want to make the most of some of its other natural assets: the Alpine country’s many lakes. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":681.0499999999997,"text":"Switzerland is investing heavily in lake-powered, centralised cooling networks. Geneva’s GeniLac system draws water from about 45 metres below the surface of Lake Geneva, where temperatures remain close to 7C year-round, to provide cooling directly and heating via heat pumps. The capital-intensive system is expected to cost as much as SFr900mn ($1.1bn). "}],[{"start":707.9499999999997,"text":"The system is being expanded across the canton and is intended to eventually serve residential, commercial and public buildings, with recent reductions in connection charges designed to encourage smaller buildings to join."}],[{"start":720.8499999999997,"text":"Other Swiss cities are planning projects around Lake Zurich, Lake Lugano and Lake Lucerne. Zurich, for example, has approved more than SwFr300mn of investment in its CoolCity system for the city centre."}],[{"start":734.0999999999997,"text":"Still, some want the country to relax its traditionally severe restrictions on air conditioning, in place due to concerns it will drive up electricity demand and generate waste heat. One Geneva-based commodities trader said they had installed an illegal air conditioning unit. “A lot of people do this given how hard it is to get approval,” they said."}],[{"start":755.1499999999996,"text":"Geneva’s energy department said it was examining ways to simplify the administrative process for installing residential air conditioning, arguing that cooling “shouldn’t be demonised”."}],[{"start":766.3999999999996,"text":"But officials stress that insulation, shading, natural ventilation, urban greening and district cooling remain the preferred long-term response."}],[{"start":775.2499999999997,"text":"Mercedes Ruehl in Zurich"}],[{"start":777.7999999999996,"text":"Athens: stay out of the heat and monitor fire alerts"}],[{"start":781.6499999999996,"text":"Summer highs in the Greek capital routinely reach 35C in July and August, but in the past five years thermometers have tipped above 40C and left nights uncomfortably hot, as its concrete fabric traps heat long after sunset. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":797.6999999999996,"text":"Together with Los Angeles, Miami and Freetown, Athens has had a chief heat officer since 2020, aiming to create a more systematic model of building heat resilience."}],[{"start":808.0999999999996,"text":"Athens classifies heatwaves by health risk using local weather and mortality data, while offering real-time heat maps, cooling points and safer walking routes through a mobile app. Municipal clinics operate a medical advice hotline."}],[{"start":822.6499999999995,"text":"The city has also published a “survival guide” urging residents to reorganise daily life around the heat: run errands during cooler hours, avoid unnecessary movement at midday, wear hats and light-coloured clothes, take frequent cool showers and other practical instructions."}],[{"start":839.4999999999995,"text":"A dedicated array of four satellites, launched in May, is monitoring for wildfires. It has also rehabilitated ancient subterranean water sources."}],[{"start":848.3999999999995,"text":"But Athens remains a dense city of concrete, with limited green space, heavy polluting traffic, and apartment blocks that act like radiators."}],[{"start":857.4499999999995,"text":"Eleni Varvitsioti in Athens"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":860.3499999999995,"text":"Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT’s coverage here."}],[{"start":867.1999999999995,"text":"Are you curious about the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments? Find out more about our science-based targets here"}],[{"start":880.8999999999995,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1783506220_9665.mp3"}