“The year in which all records fell.” This is the summary of the twelve months of 2023 and that have been repeated again and again since 2024 began. Historic temperatures, unprecedented heat waves, extreme floods, never-recorded thaw… And a bill: 13.4 billion euros and more of a hundred lives lost, but “without accounting for the impact of heat waves yet,” says the Copernicus Climate Change Service in its 2023 State of the European Climate report published this Monday coinciding with the Earth day. Although there is good news: “It is the year with the highest production of renewable energy,” say the researchers.
The 2023 climate record in the Old Continent is summarized as “the warmest year since there are records” and translates into an anomaly of 2.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era average, on numerous days with heat stress extreme, in the hottest month ever -September- or in above-average rainfall. All of them have contributed to amplifying the final figure of losses caused by extreme weather, although the floods are the main culprits with a preliminary attribution of 81%.
The first major floods arrived in Italy last May and left nearly 540 square kilometers under water. Three months later, two-thirds of Slovenia's surface was flooded by major floods. After the summer, it was the turn of Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey, which in one day accumulated all the rain of an entire year. In total 10,854 million euros of losses and 40 deaths.
«The climate crisis is the greatest challenge of our generation. The cost of climate action may seem high, but the cost of inaction is much higher. As this report shows, we have to take advantage of science to provide solutions for the good of society,” says Celeste Saulo, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Health and climate
The impact of climate change is becoming more frequent in the daily lives of Europeans and data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service corroborate this. Thermal stress measures how the human body responds to the impact of high temperatures combined with factors such as humidity and wind speed, among others. Prolonged exposure to heat stress can aggravate some diseases and increase the risk of heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion or heat stroke, especially among vulnerable populations.
In the last 20 years, heat-related mortality has increased by around 30% and it is estimated that heat-related deaths have increased in 94% of the European regions observed. Since the 1970s, extreme heat has been a leading cause of climate-related mortality. Due to these episodes, and the most extreme ones have occurred since the 2000s, between 55,000 and 72,000 heat-related deaths are estimated in the summers of 2003, 2010 and 2022. In these three summers alone. “The data for 2023 have not yet been estimated,” adds the text of the State of the European Climate report.
Despite this, only 12 countries of the 50 parties, as established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, have adopted strategies to protect health from the impacts derived from climate change and only 5 have highlighted and highlighted illnesses and mortality due to extreme weather events.
However, the relationship between health and climate has already entered the political agenda. In May, the World Health Assembly focused for the first time on health and climate change, including a panel discussion on the role of the health community in climate action and the need for dedicated financing mechanisms. In the middle of summer, G20 health ministers made climate and health a priority and agreed on first high-level principles for health and climate action. And, finally, COP28 held in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) held an exclusive day to address this issue. A day that concluded with a declaration signed by 123 countries that placed health at the center of climate action.
In 2023, the number of snow days in the Old Continent was below average, especially in central Europe and the Alps during winter and spring. This, together with high summer temperatures, has contributed to a net loss of ice from glaciers across Europe. The most drastic example is that of the Alps, where glaciers have lost around 10% of their remaining volume in 2022 and 2023.
“This is not a unique issue for Europe,” says Juan Ignacio López Moreno, researcher at the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology. Arctic sea ice extent remained below average for most of 2023. At its annual peak in March, monthly extent was 4% below average, ranking fifth lowest on record.
“The data presented in the European State of the Climate are alarming,” highlights Mauro Facchini, head of Earth Observation in the Directorate General for Defense Industry and Space (DG DEFIS) of the European Commission. “But this research is also a fundamental tool in our transition goals towards sustainable energy,” he adds.
In 2023, a record percentage of electricity generation in Europe came from renewable sources, rising to 43%, up from 36% in 2022. For the second year in a row, power generation from renewable sources exceeded that of polluting fossil fuels. “Temperatures continue to rise, making our data increasingly vital to prepare for the effects of climate change,” says Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S.
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