Europe Today: Drowning In Winter, Withering In Summer And Clueless On Scale And Impact Of Impending Climate Collapse
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The quiet fallout of a broken climate – a book club short of one member, a rock band without a bassist, a cafe that lacks a pastry chef – has been echoing around western Europe for weeks. The back-to-back storms that battered Spain have killed at least 16 people in neighbouring Portugal. Soils across France have reached unprecedented levels of saturation, with weather forecasters issuing flood alerts that demand “absolute vigilance”. Parts of the UK have broken records for the number of days without a break in the rain. This is Europe’s new reality: under water in winter, withered in summer. Yet even as the weather extremes worsen, the voices of denial have grown louder and more influential. “We’re moving toward self-destruction of the planet,” said Navarro, adding that at the age of 60 she had witnessed the effects of climate change first-hand. “It’s not something ‘they’ told me, it’s something I’ve seen. How can anybody say this is an invention?”
The answer, particularly in the US, is with breathtaking ease. The president, Donald Trump, has ramped up his attacks on climate policy in recent weeks – quitting the Paris agreement again and repealing a finding that underpins pollution controls – while going global with his “drill, baby, drill” policy. Chris Wright, the US energy secretary and former fracking executive, has pressured Europe to roll back methane standards and sustainability rules that could threaten American exports of liquefied natural gas. On Wednesday, he urged spreadsheet-wranglers at the International Energy Agency to “drop the climate” from its models.
Even in Europe, where polls show citizens overwhelmingly accept climate science and support stopping planet-heating pollution, a quiet but deadly form of denial has emerged. Far-right parties have gained ground across the continent, even as they make fighting climate policy – aided by the Heartland Institute, a US thinktank funded by fossil fuels – their second priority after immigration. Centrist leaders, alarmed by their success and anxious to placate polluting industries, are rolling back green rules with a vigour that has surprised even some lobbyists. This month, ahead of a meeting in Antwerp between the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and business leaders, the EU’s carbon price – the cornerstone of its pollution-cutting efforts – found itself in the crosshairs of the powerful chemical industry.
All the while, evacuation alerts are lighting up phones and rivers are bursting their banks as new storms form before the waters from the last have receded. Alice, Benjamin and Claudia were the storms named by meteorologists that started the season in southern Europe in October and November. David, Emilia and Francis led to a wet December. In January, five storms struck in quick succession – Goretti, Harry, Ingrid, Joseph and Kristin – while in February there were just as many – Leonardo, Martha, Nils, Oriana and Pedro – in the first two weeks. The season is one storm shy of the record 17 that hit in the 2023-24 season, with forecasters having reached the second half of the alphabet in far less time.
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https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/21/under-water-in-denial-is-europe-drowning-out-the-climate-crisis
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