Europe is the fastest warming continent on the planet. The European Environment Agency (EEA) and Copernicus (the European climate agency) published, in March and April 2024, two reports that once again confirm the unique speed of European warming: the European Climate Risk Assessment (European Climate Risk Assessment, hereinafter Eucra, in its acronym in English) and the European State of the Climate 2023 (State of the European Climate in free translation, hereinafter ESC2023). The Eucra report identified 36 climate risks in Europe, warning that several of them “have already reached critical levels”:[1]
“Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world. Extreme heat, once relatively rare, is becoming more frequent as precipitation patterns change. Torrential rains and other weather extremes are worsening, and in recent years, catastrophic floods have been recorded in several regions. At the same time, southern Europe is expected to experience considerable decreases in precipitation and more severe droughts. Such events, combined with environmental and social risk factors, pose major challenges for the whole of Europe. Specifically, they worsen food and water shortages, compromise energy security and financial stability, the health of the general population and that of outdoor workers, which, in turn, affects social cohesion and stability.”
In April, ESC2023 reiterated the term “catastrophic” and added more data to this calamitous picture:[2]
“Since the 1980s, Europe has warmed twice as fast as the global average, making it the fastest-warming continent on Earth. (…) The glaciers are melting and there are changes in the precipitation pattern. The increase in extreme precipitation is causing catastrophic events, such as the widespread floods recorded in Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Norway and Sweden in 2023. Meanwhile, southern Europe is experiencing widespread droughts. The frequency and severity of extreme events are increasing.”
Figure 1 compares the global average warming and that of Europe, showing how the European average warming in 2023 was already 2,48ºC – 2,58ºC above the pre-industrial period (ESC2023).
The three hottest years on historical records in Europe have occurred since 2020 and the ten hottest years have occurred since 2007 (ESC2023). Over the last five years (2019-2023), thermometers have recorded increasingly anomalous temperatures in European summers[3], all above 40 oC: 40,3 oC in the United Kingdom (2022); 40,7 oC in the Netherlands (2019); 41,8 oC in Belgium (2019); 42,6 oC in Germany (2019); 46 oC in France (2019); 46,2 oC in Cyprus (2020); 46,4 oC in Greece (2023); 47 oC in Portugal (2022); 47,6 oC in Spain (2021) and 48,8 oC in Sicily (2021). The worst heat waves in historical records in Europe, in terms of intensity and duration, occurred in the 21st century, in the years 2001, 2003, 2010, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
European heat waves are increasingly earlier, more frequent and more intense. In April 2023, the Spanish Ministry of Health proposed bringing forward its adaptation plan to extreme heat to May 15, previously set for June 1, including the possibility of changing school schedules[4]. The frequency of heat waves in Greece jumped from 0,7 per year between 1950 and 2020 to 1,1 per year between 1990 and 2020, an increase of 80%, and the areas of that country that have experienced at least one heat wave per year have almost doubled since 1990[5]. Figure 2 shows the increase in record temperature records at French meteorological stations before 2000, between 2000 and 2009 and between 2010 and June 2022.
In the North Atlantic, west of Ireland and around the United Kingdom, an “extreme” and, in certain areas, “beyond extreme” marine heat wave was recorded in June 2023, with sea surface temperatures of up to 5 oC above the average for the period 1991-2020 (ESC2023).
Acceleration of decadal rates of European warming
The acceleration of warming in Europe is the aspect that most immediately threatens its ability to adapt. It becomes evident when comparing warming rates by decade over the last 50 years (1974-2023), as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 – Acceleration of warming rates by decade in Europe between 1970 and 2023
1970-2010: 0,34 oC
1970-2023: 0,40 oC
1974-2023: 0,43 oC
1981-2019: 0,46 oC
1994-2023: 0,48 oC
2004-2023: 0,61 oC
Source: Noaa, Climate at a Glance Global Time Series. For the period 1981-2019, see: Noaa, Annual 2019 Global Climate Report.
The warming rate per decade in Europe between 1994 and 2023 (0,48 oC) is already greater than double the global average rate over these 30 years (0,22 oC/decade[6]). Above all, the decadal warming rate in Europe increased by 80% compared to itself when comparing the two periods (1970-2010 x 2004-2023).[7] The warming rate of the last 20 years is maintained (2004-2023 = 0,61 oC), the average temperature on the continent will increase by 1 oC every 17 years. Thus, in 2040, Europe will reach an average warming of between 3,3 oC and 3,58 oC and, by mid-century, a warming of 4 oC, a climate situation possibly at or above the limit of adaptation possibilities, even in technologically advanced societies. That said, the future is always somewhat uncertain. Let's quickly see how European warming is already threatening the possibilities of European adaptation today.
Higher heat mortality
One indicator of the limits of adaptation to warming is the increasing mortality from extreme heat in European summers. ESC2023 states:[8]
“In Europe, since 1970, extreme heat has been the main cause of climate-related deaths, with 23 of the 30 most serious heat waves occurring since 2000 and the five most serious in the last three years. An estimated 55 to 72 deaths due to heat waves are estimated in each summer of 2003, 2010 and 2022. […] In the European Region of the World Health Organization, heat-related mortality has increased by around 30% in recent years 20 years. Between 2000 and 2020, heat-related deaths are estimated to have increased by 94% in the European regions monitored.”
It is estimated that in 2022 there were, in Europe, 61.672 excess deaths directly associated with extreme heat between May 30th and September 4th.[9] To assess the limits of this adaptation, one must consider the set of impacts related in one way or another to warming, including negative impacts on human health and that of other animals, the behavior of ecosystems, water security, the fire factor (deaths and illness due to inhalation of particulate matter), the greater spread of epidemics in warmer climates, wider geographic distribution of zoonosis vectors, etc. In 2023, the Aedes albopictus, for example, which transmits dengue fever, had already established itself in 13 European countries.[10]
Droughts and floods
Alternating floods and droughts have caused huge impacts in Europe, causing 243 deaths in July 2021 alone. In Belgium, the Minister of the Interior, Annelies Verlinden, declared that the 2021 flood had been “one of the biggest natural disasters ever to occur in our country". It is known that, with each degree of temperature increase, the air column absorbs an additional 7% of water vapor. Scientists from the World Weather Attribution — which estimates how much the probability, frequency and/or intensity of a natural disaster can be attributed to the climate emergency — showed that by 2021, warming had already made summer storms in Germany 3% 19% stronger and 1,2 to 9 times more likely. Friederike Otto, one of the co-authors of this attribution study, then declared to the press a truism that many in Europe have not yet understood: “These floods have shown us that even developed countries are not safe” in the face of the climate emergency.[11]
According to the ESC2023 and Eucra reports, in 2023 alone, around 1,6 million people were affected by floods in Europe. The storms impacted 500 Europeans during the period. In May of the same year, 23 rivers in Italy flooded an area of 540 km2, displacing 36 thousand people. In August, two-thirds of Slovenia was flooded, with around 1,5 million people affected, 8 people displaced and losses equivalent to 16% of the country's GDP. In September, extreme rainfall broke records in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, a country that had a flooded area of around 700 km2, affecting its most important agricultural regions. In some Greek locations, it rained in a single day the equivalent of the average rainfall for a year. In 2024, Europe will continue to be attacked by floods.[12]
The alternation of droughts and floods in extreme weather causes the phenomenon of contraction/dilation of clayey soils, causing cracks in the walls, which have already deteriorated the structure of tens of thousands of French homes and other buildings. In 2022, French insurers paid out 3,5 billion euros in compensation for “natural catastrophes” (the so-called “Cat Nat”), 70% more than in 2003. It is estimated that these cracks potentially threaten 54% of properties in France, among the 10,4 million of them built on clayey soil.[13] The Caisse Centrale de Réassurance — the French reinsurance company — assesses that “droughts appear to be the most worrying danger, given the amount of losses they cause and their strong future evolution”.[14]
The end of snow in the Alps
According to State of the Global Climate 2023 According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), glaciers in the European Alps have suffered extreme melting. “In Switzerland, glaciers have lost around 10% of their remaining volume in the last two years.”[15] Seasonal melting in the Alps is of great importance for rivers in Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland. In the Alps of the latter country, the altitude at which water freezes (isotherm of 0 oC) has been increasing since 1970 and, in the springs and summers, has climbed more than 100 meters per decade.[16] In August 2023, according to MeteoSwiss, the 0 isotherm oC reached a record high of 5.298 meters above sea level, meaning that all snow-capped peaks in Switzerland had air temperatures above 0 oC, with deep melting of the permafrost, generally found above 2.500 meters.[17] In this regard, Michael Matiu and colleagues found: (a) an average decrease of 8,4% per decade in snow depth and (b) an average decrease of 5,6% in the duration of snow cover in most seasons alpine weather from November to May between 1971 and 2019.[18] Between the winters of 2021 and 2022, the glaciers of the Mont Blanc massif, on the French-Italian border, located at altitudes above 2.100 meters and even at 3.500 meters, lost 3 to 4 meters in thickness.[19] Simulations on the future of hydrological extremes in the Alps, according to sensitivity models for different levels of warming (1 to 3 oC), predict greater changes especially in northern Italy and Central Europe.[20]
The worsening of droughts on a continental scale in the 21st century
Especially severe drought events in Europe have been recurring with increasing frequency, with records on a continental scale in 2003, 2010, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2022. The latter, the worst in the last 500 years,[21] extended over more than 630 thousand km2, which represents almost four times the annual historical average of European territories affected by droughts between 2000 and 2022 (167 thousand km2).[22] According to European Drought Risk Atlas, 21 severe droughts have occurred on the continent since 2011. Its authors warn that “the frequency of these events is decreasing the recovery window between impacts, leading to even more serious consequences.”[23] The 2022 drought extended across 60% of the territory of the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom. The countries on the Mediterranean coast, in addition to Romania and Bulgaria, find themselves in an increasingly precarious hydrological situation. The Department of Pyrenees-Orientales, in the region of Ocitania (southern France), is facing “a historic drought in duration and intensity, the most severe since our first records, which date back to 1959. The winter of 2023-2024 was even more drier than the previous one and records a 55% rainfall deficit”.[24] This is just one local chapter of the overwhelming report that the European Commission, through its Joint Research Center (JRC), published on the Mediterranean situation.[25] The hydroclimatic balance of Emilia-Romagna (whose capital is Bologna) provides an eloquent example of the drying up of the Italian peninsula. Figure 3 summarizes this evolution over the last 62 years.
In the 23 years between 1961 and 1984, only eight presented hydroclimatic deficits in this region compared to the period 1961-2022, a ratio of almost three annual surpluses for each deficit. But, in the 38 years between 1985 and 2022, this relationship was reversed: there were four annual hydroclimatic deficits for each surplus.
Drying and degradation of rivers
Emblematic rivers of European geography and history could be crossed on foot, in some sections, in the summer of 2022. The Po River, with its 652 km and 141 tributaries, once called the king of rivers (fluviorum rex, This is what Virgil calls him in Book I of Georgian), suffered in 2022 the worst drought in the last 70 years. As a result, the Adriatic Sea advanced almost 20 km across its estuary, ruining many of its crops. In February 2023, the River Po dried up again, putting a third of Italian agri-food production at risk.[26] The Loire, the longest river in France, suffered, in 2022, its lowest level since at least 1976. That year, the Rhine reached such a low level that water transport almost became unfeasible. In May 2023, it was possible to cross the Tagus River on foot in some sections. The situation of Spanish rivers is so critical that, in September 2022, the government of that country notified Portugal that it would only partially honor the Cooperation Convention for the Protection and Sustainable Use of the Waters of the Luso-Spanish Hydrographic Basins, known as the Convention of Albufeira, in force since 2000. This is a treaty that establishes common management of the Tagus, Minho, Douro, Lima and Guadiana rivers, as well as the peninsula's groundwater. The decision increases tension between the two countries, given that, in 2019, there was a first failure on Spain's part to comply with what was established by the treaty.[27]
Impacts on electricity generation and water quality
The impacts of droughts on hydroelectric power generation and the cooling of nuclear power plants have been particularly felt in France. In 2022, the country became, for the first time in more than 40 years, a net importer of energy from Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and, above all, Germany, itself under energy pressure, due, among other factors , the interruption or reduction of gas supplies from Russia.[28] The French state-owned company Électricité de France (EDF) has reduced electricity generation at nuclear power plants on the Rhône and Garonne rivers, as the warming of their waters restricts the ability of these rivers to cool these plants without exceeding temperatures that are too harmful for aquatic life. In 2022, half of the country's 56 nuclear reactors were shut down for maintenance, repairs or due to limitations imposed by the weather, so that power generation by the French nuclear park in 2022 was the lowest in more than three decades.[29]
Decline of aquifers and groundwater
The quantitative and qualitative decline of groundwater and aquifers constitutes the least known and perhaps the most systemic aspect of the European water crisis. In France, Christophe Béchu, minister of “Ecological Transition” (with quotation marks, of course), declared in June 2023: “In two thirds of the country, groundwater is below normal; 66% is huge. Rain sometimes falls more suddenly, more concentrated, and much of it is absorbed by rising temperatures.” The consequences of this, continues the minister, are, on the one hand, “less water for human activities and, on the other, catastrophes caused by runoffs and extremely violent storms”.[30] The decline of aquifers is also general across the continent, according to data from the Grace (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) and Grace-FO (FO for Follow-On) satellites. Between 2002 and 2022, European aquifers — with few exceptions — lost more water than they recovered. It is estimated that, in these 21 years, these aquifers have lost an average of 84 billion tons of water per year, due to a synergy between climate emergency, droughts and excess extraction. As Cynthia Barnett states: “Climate change and the overexploitation of aquifers are closely linked. As severe droughts increase, farmers, industries and cities pump more and more water, and deeper and deeper, to compensate for the lack of precipitation and record heat.”[31]
Deforestation, degradation and forest fires
Europe has suffered, especially in the last decade, a decrease in the area of its canopy (tree cover), according to a recent survey:[32]
“After 2016, the extent of tree cover in Europe decreased. […] The continental extent of forests with tall trees (≥ 15 m tall) decreased by 3% between 2001 and 2021. The recent decline in tree canopy extent is consistent with FAO statistics. United Nations for Food and Agriculture] on the intensification of logging and on the increasing extent and severity of natural disturbances. The observed decrease in tree canopy height indicates a reduction in forest carbon storage capacity in Europe.”
The area with tall forests (≥ 15 m in height) decreased by 22,5 thousand km2 in the last two decades. The Nordic countries recorded a 20% reduction in their tall forests, a reduction that also occurred in southeastern Europe. Even when tall forests are replaced by new trees, these can take decades to mature before providing equivalent climate and ecosystem benefits.[33] Given the reduction and intensification of climate extremes, droughts and the enormous increase in the area and duration of fires, European forests are reacting by closing their stomata to reduce water loss. This defense makes them less efficient in absorbing CO2 in their photosynthesis, which constitutes a typical feedback loop of warming. In France, forests “absorbed more than 70 million tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) in 2008, but this amount fell to 27 MtCO2 in 2022, that is, a division by three in less than 15 years”.[34]
The geographic extent of forest fires in Europe is increasing, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2 – Hectares of forests consumed by fires in the European Union between 2018 and 2022
2018: 117.356
2019: 295.835
2020: 339.824
2021: 470.359
2022: 785.000
Source: Laurence Coustal, “L'Europe s'embrase de plus en plus”. La Presse, 24/07/2023.
According to the FAO,[35] the extent of the fires in the summer of 2022 exceeded 800 thousand hectares, mainly affecting Portugal, Spain and Romania. Figure 4 shows the extent of the forest fire area in European Union countries in 2022, compared with the average for the years 2006-2021.
In 2022, the area of these fires is greater than twice the average area burned in the period 2006-2021. Furthermore, the fire season has started earlier.
Threats to food security
The EUCRA report states that “agricultural production is already facing substantial climate risks in Europe as a whole”. Between 1961 and 2018, droughts and heat waves caused decreases in European cereal harvests of around 9% (droughts) and 7,3% (heat waves). Non-cereal agricultural products decreased by 3,8% (droughts) and 3,1% (heat waves) during this period. “The severity of the impacts of heat waves and drought on [European] agricultural production has approximately tripled in the last 50 years, from losses of 2,2% (1964-1990) to losses of 7,3% (1991-2015) ”.[36] The 2022 drought caused a drop of up to 45% in overall harvests and a 30% drop in wheat and rice harvests in some regions of western Europe.[37] But floods also impact European agricultural productivity. Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union in the United Kingdom, stated in 2023:[38]
“Climate change is wreaking havoc on food production around the world, with farmers in southern Europe having to fight fires, while farmers here are desperate as they have to spend thousands of pounds drying soggy cereals.”
In Spain, the drought caused a drop of more than 50% in olive production in the 2022-2023 season (651 thousand tons) compared to the 2021-2022 season (1,5 million tons).[39] A study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) shows that, in this country, 80% of current water consumption serves an unsustainable industrial agriculture model. According to this study, “this type of irrigation consumes up to a hundred times more water than the 3 million inhabitants of Madrid need in a year”.[40] Over 20% of Spain's territory, agriculture has already become unviable and, according to Antonio Turiel, researcher at the Spanish Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, “in a scenario of an increase of 3 oC [in average global warming], the only habitable zone in Spain would really be the Cantabrian coast and its surroundings. The rest would be uninhabitable, with the exception of some area of the Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees.”[41]
The three pillars of European denialism: environmental collapse, fascism and war
European denialism, an expanding phenomenon and obviously much more complex than can be properly analyzed here, is the subject of a chapter in a book I am writing. This work must also include a detailed analysis of the destruction of nature and pollution. In a future article, I will analyze European denialism regarding the specific environmental impacts of the war in Ukraine. Here, it is necessary to abbreviate and conclude. To this end, let us quote the assessment of Leena Ylä-Mononen – director of the European Environmental Agency, who published the Eucra report – on the future of Europe:[42]
“The extreme heat, droughts, forest fires and floods that we have suffered in recent years in Europe will worsen, even in optimistic warming scenarios, and will affect living conditions across the entire continent. These events represent the new normal. They should also act as a warning shot.”
This is the future of the planet in general, but, again, Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average, so these impacts will hit the continent sooner and harder than elsewhere. And it is clear that “optimistic warm-up scenarios” have long belonged to the literary genre of children's fantasy. Ylä-Mononen's words should raise panic. When stretches of large European rivers dried up in 2022, I confess that I thought for a moment that the moment of panic desired in 2019 by Greta Thunberg in Davos had arrived: “I want them to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want them to act like they're in crisis. I want you to act like our house is on fire. Because she is.”[43]
The panic did not happen, because the primary form of European denialism is its tenacious illusion of not being on the front line of global environmental collapse. If, in our day, other continents are being more cruelly hit by climate extremes, Europe is more vulnerable to future warming than many of the countries in the so-called Global South. It seems very, very difficult, in any case, to imagine it adapting to average warming above 3,5 oC to be achieved in the next 20 years, maintaining the warming rate of 0,61 oC per decade of the last 20 years. And it seems even more difficult to assume that this already superlative rate of warming will not accelerate further in the coming years.
The second pillar of European denialism is the repression and criminalization of environmental movements that try to slow down the ongoing collapse, such as Soulèvement de la Terre, Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Greenpeace, Fridays For Future, etc. In France, opponents of the construction of the A69 motorway in the southwest of the country and the absurd megawater basins created by pumping groundwater have been victims of police and paramilitary terror.[44] According to a 2023 report by the Council of Europe itself:[45]
“In recent months, peaceful environmental protesters have been pepper-sprayed by police in Austria, brutalized and injured by riot police in France (…) and subjected to arrests and detention in Finland, the Netherlands and Serbia. Activists who blocked a street in Munich were placed in preventive detention for 30 days under 2021 legislation, and activists' homes were searched across Germany. In several European countries, courts have imposed prison sentences, with and without probation, or community service sentences (…) In France, Spain and the United Kingdom, journalists and media workers have been detained on duty, investigated and , in some cases, criminally accused.”
Michael Forst, United Nations (UN) Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention (1998), stated: “The current repression in Europe of environmental activists who resort to peaceful actions of civil disobedience poses a major threat democracy and human rights”.[46] Today, there is European legislation, equating ecological activists with terrorists, with penalties of up to ten years in prison for peaceful demonstrations.[47] In Spain, a 2022 Public Prosecutor's Office report listed the Extinction Rebellion movement as “international terrorism.”[48] The Public Act Order of 2023 in the United Kingdom, the Italian law against so-called “ecovandalism” and the new German legislation banning any form of peaceful protest are symptoms of the resurgent European fascism, increasingly normalized by center-right parties. In the 1920s and 1930s, Europe created a globalized political dynamic, then exported it and now shares it again: center-left and center-right pursue the same policy of social regression dictated by the financial oligarchy, and the most vulnerable sectors of society succumb to the supposedly “anti-system” appeal of the far right, while the center-right increasingly capitulates and mimics the ideology and agenda of fascism. “The Greens are our enemies”, exclaim the members of the neo-Nazi German party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).[49] In Europe as a whole, the growing far-right parties are increasingly shaping the agenda of center-right parties.
The third pillar of European denialism consists of replacing the fight against environmental crises with the fight of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against the government of Vladimir Putin, president of Russia (down to the last Ukrainian…). Without peace, there is no chance of success in combating the existential threats that the future climate holds for everyone, and first and foremost for Europeans. On the contrary, war is the dominant force of current politics in both Russia and Europe. Both abound in the puerile logic of quarrelsome little children who accuse each other in front of adults, exclaiming: “It's his fault. He was the one who started it!” The problem is that these little kids have atomic arsenals and their fingers are on the trigger. To the repeated and growing Russian threats to use these weapons, NATO countries respond in unison: “It’s a bluff!” Not only do they want to pay and see, but they return the threat to Russia and double the bet, as did Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Foreign Minister, when he stated: “I think that Vladimir Putin must also understand that the Atlantic alliance It's a nuclear alliance. I won’t say anything more.”[50] Emmanuel Macron reinforces his minister: “I am in favor of opening this debate [on European defense], which must include anti-missile defense, long-range weapons and nuclear weapons for those who have them or who have nuclear weapons on their soil. American".[51] When politics is replaced by this level of stupidity, nothing prevents the gears of war from gaining its own momentum. Abolishing the nuclear taboo and the healthy fear of terminal war is the quickest way to cross this point of no return. But even if nuclear war is avoided, the rhetoric of war only plunges the world, and Europe first and foremost, into the common abyss. It is about understanding that all the major actors in the clash in global geopolitics endorse the same paradigm of environmental destruction on a planetary scale, which includes, naturally, and not lastly, their own destruction. Of the three pillars of European denialism, this third, that of war and war rhetoric, is the most hypocritical. NATO and Russia owe each other a lot. Thanks to Russia, NATO, until recently in “brain death” (Emmanuel Macron dixit, in 2019), gained some survival. And thanks to NATO, Russia forged an “unlimited alliance” with China (NATO’s strategic enemy), in addition to favoring alliances with Iran, North Korea and African countries, formerly areas of French influence.
But NATO countries' providential aid to Russia goes much further. Macron has floated the possibility of sending French troops to Ukraine. But, “at the same time” (an expression that immortalized him), he is silent about the fact that France has almost tripled its imports of Russian enriched uranium. The French remain dependent on the management of their uranium by the Russian state-owned company Rosatom, which controls the transport of all nuclear materials imported by France from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.[52] The UK is “laundering” Russian oil by importing it through India, China and Turkey in the form of refined petroleum. “It is estimated that one in every 20 flights in the UK in the first six months of 2023 used fuel originating in Russia.”[53] For no other reason, British imports of refined oil from China have increased 20-fold since 2021. Furthermore, to show their irreducible repudiation of Russian autocracy, EU countries have increased their oil imports from countries as observant of human rights as Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates… But in the case of gas, the scenario is even worse. Between January and August 2023, TotalEnergies purchased around 4,2 million m3 of Russian liquefied gas (LNG).[54] Since the start of the Ukraine war, EU countries have purchased $30 billion worth of LNG from Russia. During this period, Russia was the second largest LNG supplier to the EU after the United States. In 2021, the EU purchased 39% of Russian LNG exports; in 2022, 49%, and from January to July 2023, 52%.[55] Figure 5 shows the evolution of these imports.
Anyone over 70 will remember NATO propaganda in the Cold War of the 1960s: “Warsaw Pact troops can reach Lisbon in 24 hours”. Today, Russia is once again portrayed by NATO and its corporate media as the Hollywood zombie that, rising from its grave, will invade Europe after devouring Ukraine, this is the inevitability of war against the monstrous enemy. But what economic or geopolitical interest could Russia have in invading EU countries, voracious customers of its enriched uranium and fossil fuels? The only enemy that already invaded Europe is already devastating it and will make it unviable as a society throughout this second quarter of the 21st century is the set of European environmental crises. European governments today propose a “war economy”, and EU military budgets increased by 16% in 2023 compared to 2022, and 62% compared to the average for the 2014-2023 period, reaching 588 billion dollars.[56] Meanwhile, the climate crisis explodes. Meanwhile, also, in 2023, “95,3 million people in the EU lived at risk of poverty and social exclusion, equivalent to 21,6% of its population”, according to Eurostat.[57] The “necessity” of war is the new motto that covers the accumulation of fatal regressions in environmental governance: the new European Agricultural Policy (CAP) has abandoned the last environmental scruples; Norway granted 47 new licenses for offshore oil and gas exploration; the United Kingdom adopted a policy of maximizing this production in the North Sea;[58] Italy's gas exploration in the Adriatic will increase subsidence in the Polesine area of Veneto,[59] and European fossil fuel subsidies more than doubled in 2022![60] Such regressions, and they are almost countless, expose European denialism once and for all.
A century ago, Romain Rolland, Gramsci, Jeanne Halbwachs, Stephan Zweig, Jean Jaurès and Bertrand Russell opposed the dementia of the First World War, which engendered the Second. Today, Luciano Canfora, Edgar Morin and Clare Daly are authentic European voices against warmongering and terminal nihilism. Subjection to the dictatorship of financial capital (Greece, devastated in 2015, is today poorer than in 2010 and has an even more unpayable debt[61]), voluntary servitude to the “protection” of the USA, which dictates the sacrifice of Ukraine on the altar of an irrational, and above all hypocritical, hatred of Russia, and abject complicity in relation to the Palestinian genocide (more than 38 thousand civilians killed, 212 per day![62]) are eliminating the last remnants of the moral capital of the European Union construction project, initially so generous and far-sighted. And yet, it is still possible to mitigate climate collapse in Europe, increasing its chances of adaptation. To do so, it is necessary to begin with the demand for peace.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
[1] See European Environmental Report (EEA Report 01/2024), European climate risk assessment.
[2] See European State of the Climate 2023.
[3] Cf. Dominik L. Schumacher et al., “Exacerbated European summer warming not captured by climate models neglecting long-term aerosol changes”. Communications Earth & Environment, 5, 182, 6/4/2024.
[4] Cf. “L'Espagne confrontée à une vague de chaleur precoce et un risque d'incendies 'très élevé', voire 'extrême'.” Le Monde, 27/4/2023.
[5] Cf. Elissavet Galanaki et al., “Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Heatwave Characteristics in Greece from 1950 to 2020”. Climate, 11, 1, 5, 2023.
[6] See Noaa, Global Time Series.
[7] See WMO, State of the Climate in Europe, 2022.
[8] See Copernicus & OMM, ESC2023, p. 20.
[9] Cf. Joan Ballester et al., “Heat-related mortality in Europe during the summer of 2022”. Nature Medicine, 29, 2023, p. 1857-1866.
[10] See Helena Horton, “Mosquito-borne diseases spreading in Europe due to climate crisis, says expert”. The Guardian, 25/4/2024.
[11] Quoted by Ajit Niranjan, “German floods: Climate change made heavy rains more likely”. DW, 24/VIII/2021: “These floods have shown us that even developed countries are not safe”.
[12] See “Weathers coming to Europe”. Météo & Radar, 26/4/2024.
[13] See Aurélie Blondel & Manon Romain, “L'agent immobilier et le notaires m'ont expliqué qu'on pouvait cacher les fissures avec des tables”. Le Monde, 9/7/2023.
[14] See Aurélie Blondel, “Les maisons fissurées à cause de la sécheresse”. Le Monde, 18/10/2023.
[15] See WMO, State of the Global Climate 2023, p. 15.
[16] See Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology Meteo Swiss.
[17] See Jamey Keaten, “Swiss glaciers under threat again as heat wave drives zero-temperature level to record altitude”. AP News, 21/08/2023.
[18] See Michael Matiu et al., “Observed snow depth trends in the European Alps: 1971 to 2019”. the cryosphere, 15, 18/03/2021, pp. 1343-1382.
[19] Cf. Matthieu Goar, “Dans the massif du Mont-Blanc, the source of high-altitude glaciers is strongly accélérée”. Le Monde, 14/01/2024.
[20] See Manuela I. Brunner & Eric Gilleland, “Future Changes in Floods, Droughts, and Their Extents in the Alps: A Sensitivity Analysis With a Non-Stationary Stochastic Streamflow Generator”. Earth's Future, 10/04/2024.
[21] See Sebastian Wolf & Eugénie Paul-Limoges, “Drought and heat reduce forest carbon uptake”. Nature Communications, 14, 6217, 2023. Regarding the droughts of 2018 and 2019, cf. Vittal Hari et al., “Increased future occurrences of the exceptional 2018–2019 Central European drought under global warming”. Scientific Reports, 10, 12207, 06/08/2020.
[22] See Daniel Tsegai, Patrick Augenstein & Zhuojing Huang, “Global Drought Snapshot 2023. The need for proactive action”. UNCCD, 2023.
[23] See Lauro Rossi et al., European Drought Risk Atlas, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2023.
[24] See Martine Valo, “Une sécheresse critique s'installe durablement dans le bassin méditerranéen”. Le Monde, 18/03/2024.
[25] Cf. A. Toreti et al., “Drought in Mediterranean Region. Technical Report”. European Commission, JRC Global Drought Observatory (GDO) of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS), January 2024.
[26] Cf. Micaela Cappellini, “Allarme siccità, il Po è di nuovo a secco come la scorsa estate”. The Sun 24 hours, 13/02/2023.
[27] Cf. Céline Schmitt & Armelle Exposito, “Sécheresse sur la péninsule ibérique : désaccords entre Madrid et Lisbonne”. France 24, 24/01/2023.
[28] Cf. Benjamin Wehrmann, “'Catastrophic' winter drought in France will ill for Europe's power production in 2023″. Clean Energy Wire (CLEW), 01/03/2023.
[29] See Julia Kollewe, “EDF cuts output at nuclear power plants as French rivers get too warm”. The Guardian, 03/08/2022.
[30] Cf. “Sécheresse: 'On a deux tiers du pays où les nappes sont sous les normales', annonce Christophe Béchu”. Libération, 12/06/2023.
[31] Cf. Cynthia Barnet, “Crise de l'eau en Europe: the situation is more serious than that which I think”. National Geographic, 15/12/2022.
[32] See Svetlana Turubanova et al., “Tree canopy extent and height change in Europe, 2001–2021, quantified using Landsat data archive”. Remote Sensing of Environment, 298, 1/XII/2023.
[33] See Sarah Carter, Fred Stolle, Mikaela Weisse and Stientje van Veldhoven, “Timber Harvesting and Climate Change Are Depleting Europe's Mature Forests”. World Resources Institute, 21/11/2023.
[34] Cf. Gary Dagorn, “Pourquoi les forêts Françaises absorbent de moins em moins de carbone”. Le Monde, 14/10/2023.
[35] See FAO, The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security. Avoiding and Reducing Losses through Investment in Resilience, 2023, p. 13.
[36] See Teresa Armada Brás et al., “Severity of drought and heatwave crop losses tripled over the last five decades in Europe”. Environmental Research Letters, 16, 6, 10/06/2021.
[37] Cf. FAO, The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security, cit. (2023), p. 12.
[38] Quoted by Emaan Warraich, “Rishi Sunak told UK must grow more of its own food”. with the BBC, 10/08/2023.
[39] Cf. “Spain: decreasing the production of olive oil by more than 50%”. Redagrícola, 26/04/2023.
[40] See WWF, Spain dries up: “This type of irrigation ends up consuming up to 100 times more water than the 3 million inhabitants of the city of Madrid need in one year”.
[41] See Laura Martin Sanjuan, “The problem of desertification in Spain worsens”. AS News, 25/08/2021.
[42] Cf. “L'Europe doit act beaucoup plus vite pour éviter des situations 'catastrophiques'.” Le Monde, 11/03/2024.
[43] See Greta Thunberg: “I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house was on fire. Because it is.”
[44] Cf. “Les partisans de l'A69 instaurent un 'climat de terreur'.” Reporter, 26/04/2024.
[45] See Dunja Mijatović, “Crackdowns on peaceful environmental protests should stop and give way to more social dialogue”. Council of Europe. Human Rights Comment.
[46] See Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention.
[47] Cf. Cécile Ducourtieux, “Militants pour le climat: des actions de plus en plus criminalisées au Royaume Uni”. Le Monde, 15/02/2024.
[48] Cf. Sandra Raville, “European nations must end repression of peaceful climate protest, says UN expert”. The Guardian, 28/02/2024.
[49] See Ajit Niranjan, “How climate policies are becoming a focus for far-right attacks in Germany”. The Guardian, 30/04/2024.
[50] Cf. “Poutine doit comprendre que l'Otan est aussi une alliance nucléaire”, dit Le Drian”. Reuters, 24/II/2022.
[51] Cf. “Emmanuel Macron criticizes oppositions avoir évoqué une defense europeenne comprenant l'arme nucléaire”. Le Monde, 29/IV/2024.
[52] See Greenpeace, “La Russie, plaque tournante de l'uranium”, March 2023.
[53] Cf. “UK Accused of 'Helping Russia' as Refined Oil Imports From 'Laundering' Countries Remain at Record High”. DeSmog, 24/04/2024.
[54] Cf. “TotalEnergies Announces €4.5 billion Quarterly Profits While Remaining A Top Buyer of Russian Liquified Gas”. Global Witness, 27/07/2023.
[55] Cf. “EU imports of Russian LNG have jumped by 40% since the invasion of Ukraine”. Global Witness, 30/08/2023.
[56] See Nan Tian, Diego Lopes da Silva, Xiao Liang & Lorenzo Scarazzato, “Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2023”. SIPRI, April 2024.
[57] See Eurostat, “Living conditions in Europe – poverty and social exclusion".
[58] See Romain Ioualalen & Kelly Trout, Planet Wreckers: How Countries' Oil and Gas Extraction Plans Risk Locking in Climate Chaos”. Oil Change International. 09/2023; Bill McKibben, “Uncounted Emissions: The Hidden Cost of Fossil Fuel Exports.” Yale Environment360, 14/11/2023.
[59] See Giorgio Ghiglione, 'If the sea rises we'll have to leave': plans to restart gas drilling threaten Italy's sinking delta”. The Guardian, 04/03/2024; “Drill, Giorgia, Drill!” With Meloni it’s trivella nell’Adriatico”. HuffPost, 25/X/2022; Annarita Digiorgio, “Meloni: “Abbiamo il dovere di sfruttare i giacimenti di gas nei nostri mari”, Il Newspaper, 22/10/2022.
[60] See European Environmental Agency, “Fossil Fuel Subsidies”, 17/11/2023: “Fossil fuel subsidies remained relatively stable at around 56 billion euros (in 2022 prices) during the period 2015-2021, but increased to 123 billion euros in 2022”.
[61] Cf. 'Yanis Varoufakis: Greece's Debt Is More Unsustainable Than Ever”. Jacobin, 20/05/2023.
[62] Cf. “200 days of military attack on Gaza: A horrific death toll amid international failure to stop Israel's genocide of Palestinians”. Relief Web, 24/04/2024.
