Brussels faces the ruin of crops and fires and is considering options such as improving water management or a solidarity plan to help in the face of climatic disasters
The severe drought that affects 60% of Europe has pushed climate change up several positions on the EU’s agenda of priorities. With the start of the new course, the Commission will find itself in such a complicated scenario due to the prolonged absence of rain and the heat wave that the community analyzes themselves predict will be the worst in the last five hundred years. And that will force ministers to look for solutions because some experts are already warning that climate change is running faster than the 2030 goals agenda.
For now, the Union will find on the table requests for help from several countries to defray the damage caused by the summer; both because of the dry land into which tens of thousands of hectares of crops or livestock have been converted, and because of the forest fires. Slovenia, the Czech Republic and France have already requested community collaboration.
The Gallic case is especially demonstrative of what is happening with the planet. The “monstrous” mega-fire caused by dryness and high temperatures in the southwest of the country, with more than 7,000 hectares burned, is a phenomenon more typical of California than of European forests, although it is also true that there are many other examples of a summer dystopian. Never has there been such a persistent drought in the northernmost territories of the hemisphere: the reservoirs of Norway are 10% below their usual level while the Swiss witness astonished the unprecedented loss of volume of Lakes Constance, Lugano, Walen and Cuatro Cantones or the “alarming” situation of its groundwater reserves, the great underground water store in Europe.
Because the world does not live on rain alone. The glaciers also suffer greatly from an unusual rise in temperatures at least since February. The Italian Sabbione has lost 35% of its mass this August and the snow cover of Gries, in Switzerland, is now half of what it had in April. The experts will ask Brussels to pay attention to this fact because the continent depends a lot on them: the less glaciers, the more warming and burned lands.
A boat, on the dry bed of the Swiss lake of Les Brenets. /
Some community ministers consider that, if it is not possible to implement global solutions immediately, there is at least the possibility of cleaning up the damage. Brussels has several proposals before it. One, improve water management. Another is to establish an urgent response team whose function would be to manage material resources and recovery funds in the event of droughts, floods, fires or other climatic disasters. A kind of solidarity system that urges the countries in a better situation to help those who suffer from catastrophes. The EU is particularly pleased with the mobilization of Germany, Greece, Poland, Austria, Denmark and Italy, which a week ago sent firefighters, tankers and planes to France to fight the fire in the Gironde. “Europe has once again shown its solidarity,” President Emmanuel Macron congratulated himself a few days ago.
Rivers turned into streams
This summer’s is not the only drought that the continent has gone through, but its duration, intensity and territorial extension does represent an unknown reality for the community club. The great navigable rivers of Europe, such as the Rhine, the Po or the Danube, coincide in being threatened with death. In some parts they are just unnavigable streams. The loss of the Po’s flow has killed 30% of the crops in Italy, which has declared an emergency in a dozen regions. Germany is facing the loss of capacity of its main river highway when it is most needed for the transport of coal.
Because that is another question. If the current absence of rains is not reversed radically -and even so, it is difficult-, several community countries fear losing a large part of their hydroelectric generation power when every kilowatt is essential to counteract the fall in Russian gas due to sanctions. to Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine.
The European Observatory warns this week that 47% of the territory is in danger of drought – a state that is equivalent to taking restriction measures – and 17% is already on serious alert. Almost 60% of water consumption goes to agriculture, which predicts, according to experts, that Brussels will have to face a high number of aid files for the sector. Only 9% of consumption is private. And then there is the non-material damage. It is impressive to contemplate Hyde Park, sparse and withered. Last month was the driest in England since 1935.
At least 37 dead from fires in northern Algeria
At least 37 people have died, including 13 minors, due to the fires that have affected the northeast of Algeria for several days, according to a new balance of victims released yesterday by the authorities. The most affected region is El Tarf, where at least 30 people have perished, while more than 160 have been injured. The fires intensified on Wednesday, with more than a hundred active sources. Interior Minister Kamal Beldjoud estimated that some 2,600 hectares of land had burned and warned that high temperatures and strong winds complicate the task of extinction.
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