Our European environment correspondent Ajit Niranjan answers your questions on the climate after reporting on the shocking heatwave that continues to scorch its way across Europe, covering everything from the lack of preparation to ways to deal with the heat
eammonmcc asks: This current brain-poaching heat is being treated as a surprise by many – there’s nothing surprising about it as this and worse has been predicted for years. Why are so many ignoring the warnings? And why do western governments and political movements peddle fairytales about it? It can’t all be because the fossil fuel industry is controlling the agenda.
Ajit: I share your bewilderment at the surprise some people and politicians have expressed in the last week. Still, it’s worth saying we have made some meaningful progress on heat even as temperatures have risen. Europe was hit by a horrific heatwave in 2003, with 70,000 heat-related deaths that summer. Scientists think if a heatwave of similar strength were to hit today, the death toll would be about 75% smaller. They can’t easily isolate the causes weakening the temperature-mortality relationship, but experts point to a mix of early warning systems, heat action plans and people adapting their behaviour when temperatures rise.
More broadly, though, I think you’re right that there’s much more going on than just fossil fuel industry influence on public debate. We are now at a point where active denial of climate change is in the single digit percentages across western Europe, yet far-right parties who engage in exactly that are polling well above 20%. In most cases, the dominant centre-right parties in those countries are actively campaigning to weaken existing climate ambition, though outside the UK they have refrained from calling to abandon net zero emissions targets.
Ajit: Climate action does not require a greater level of corporate capture or autocratic governance than the fossil fuel status quo – and the solutions on offer today already come from a broad range of actors. Autocracies are building wind turbines and solar panels in poor countries, publicly traded companies in democracies are getting state support to capture carbon from cement plants, cities are turning car parking into bike lanes, and individuals are swapping steak for tofu. All of these are important actions in scientific roadmaps to clean the economy by the middle of the century.
