NAPLES, Italy (AP) — Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at approximately twice the global average, two major climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, warning of the health consequences human activity, the melting of glaciers and economic activity.
The UN World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop specific strategies to accelerate the transition to renewable resources such as wind, solar and hydropower in response to climate change. effects of Climate Change.
The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36% the previous year, the agencies say in their report on the state of Europe’s climate last year. For the second year in a row, more energy was generated in Europe from renewable energy than from fossil fuels.
The latest five-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are now 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius higher globally, the report says – slightly below the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“Europe has seen yet another year of rising temperatures and intensifying weather extremes – including heat stress with record temperatures, wildfires, heat waves, loss of glacier ice and lack of snow,” said Elisabeth Hamdouch, deputy head of Copernicus unit in the EU executive. commission.
The report serves as a continental complement to the WMO’s flagship global climate report, which has been published annually for three decades, and this year came with a “red alert” warning that the world is not doing enough to combat the consequences of global warming.
Copernicus reported that March marked the 10th consecutive month of record monthly temperatures. The average sea surface temperature across Europe reached its highest annual level in 2023, the European report says.
The European report focuses this year on the impact of high temperatures on human health, noting that heat-related deaths have increased across the continent. He said more than 150 lives were directly lost last year in connection with storms, floods and wildfires.
The cost of weather and climate-related economic losses in 2023 has been estimated at more than €13.4 billion (about $14.3 billion).
“Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by extreme weather events in 2023, which were responsible for large losses at a continental level, estimated at at least tens of billions of euros,” said Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo.
The extreme weather has triggered heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods, the report said. High temperatures contributed to the loss of glacial ice on the continent, including in the Alps — which lost around 10% of the remaining ice from the glacier over the past two years.
Still, the report’s authors pointed out some exceptions, such as how temperatures were below average in Scandinavia and Iceland, even though the mercury was higher than average across much of the continent as a whole.
