Europe is in the grips of a devastating and deadly heatwave, shattering temperature records for the month of June across the continent.
The United Kingdom, a nation known for its generally moderate and rainy summers, has been hit hard. In one particularly ironic development, a Wednesday event at the London School of Economics titled “Extreme Heat: Improving governance and strengthening action around the world” had to be cancelled because of — you guessed it — record temperatures in the capital of just shy of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
As the BBC reports, organizers from the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance lamented that the university’s facilities simply weren’t ready to provide sufficient cooling, “like most buildings in London.”
Sheer irony aside, the alliance is using the opportunity to send an important message.
“The magnitude of future impacts from extreme heat will largely depend on global mitigation efforts, local heat governance, and response plans,” a spokesperson for the group told the BBC. “Cities like London have unique potential to adapt to changing heat risks through effective risk management at multiple levels, connecting policies and incentives, and strengthening community adaptation capacity.”
The UK capital city is melting before our very eyes, a devastating predicament for a largely unprepared population not accustomed to record temperatures.
“London isn’t just calling,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres at a separate climate event earlier this week. “It’s cooking.”
Hundreds of schools have had to close across southern England as temperatures kept climbing, per the BBC, while users of the London Underground had to endure service disruptions amidst stifling heat.
France is experiencing even hotter temperatures, with Paris hitting a June record of 105.6 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday.
“We are just at the start of seeing an increase in people going to emergency wards,” French Health Minister Stephanie Rist told reporters.
It’s a familiar predicament across the globe. Climate scientists have warned that this summer will be particularly extreme, thanks to a “Super El Niño,” a natural climate pattern characterized by warming ocean temperatures triggering extreme weather.
While there’s no evidence climate change is directly fueling the frequency or intensity of El Niño events, as the World Meteorological Organization points out, human-caused global warming can amplify their associated impacts by warming ocean temperatures and increasing the availability of more moisture in the air.
In short, what we’re seeing now is only the beginning of what is bound to be an even more brutal summer — which could complicate our efforts to get ahead of the problem.
More on the heatwave: French Open Descends Into Hellish Nightmare Thanks to Climate Change
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