Intense heat, unprecedented wildfires and savage droughts have hit Europe hard this northern summer. More than 25,000 people have died from the heat, while hundreds of thousands have been evacuated .
Authors
- Lauren Rickards
Professor of Climate Change Adaptation, La Trobe University
- Hartmut Fünfgeld
Associate Professor, Sustainability and Urban Planning, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University
- Magnus Moglia
Associate Professor of Sustainability Science, La Trobe University
Farmers in the United Kingdom have warned of possible shortages of some foods if the drought continues. The Rhine River has fallen to record low levels, disrupting one of Europe's most important trade and freight arteries.
Climate change made this angry summer vastly more likely . As governments are realising , climate change is no longer just an environmental issue, but a significant challenge for economies, infrastructure and geopolitics.
In the past few years, climate action has dropped down the international agenda. Pro-fossil-fuel governments have pushed back against already-inadequate efforts on climate action. Media coverage is falling , even as climate damage increases.
But will these recent, palpable forms of damage make climate action a priority again?
Responding to disasters - or acting on climate?
Europe is the fastest-warming continent . Temperatures are rising at about double the global rate.
European policymakers have long taken the lead to drive climate action. Many European countries were among the high-ambition nations that helped secure the hard-won Paris Agreement of 2015, with a goal of holding climate change to 1.5°C.
In the 11 years since Paris, progress has been made on electric vehicles and very rapid uptake of solar . Emissions have slowed but not yet begun to fall. Climate change has slipped down the agenda. One estimate counts the reversal of 45 climate policies across 15 jurisdictions in the year to July. The legislated 1.5°C limit is not going to be met .
In Europe, the climate change agenda has been overshadowed by war and instability, trade tensions, economic pressures and the rise of populist parties critical of existing climate policies.
Yet the picture is far from uniform. Public concern about climate change remains high across much of the continent, and this summer has increased its visibility. In Sweden, for example, climate change is a polarising but prominent issue ahead of the upcoming national election.
The problem is, worsening climate damage can amplify concern but divert resources away from the long-term investments needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and boost adaptation and preparedness.
This perverse feedback loop is known as derailment risk . The only way to escape this downward spiral is to work now to cut emissions, boost resilience and blunt the effects of climate disruptions.
Climate change also exposes weaknesses in how governments manage risk. Prevention and resilience are often underfunded because benefits are widely shared and may not be realised for years, while costs are typically paid upfront. Responsibility is often split across agencies and levels of government, which creates a bias towards responding to disasters after they happen rather than investing to reduce future losses.
Authorities will need to fund quick-response disaster recovery efforts that both reduce long-term risks and improve response capacity, such as nature-based solutions or rebuilding destroyed houses and infrastructure better or in different locations after disasters .
Surprisingly, natural disasters and climate change have long been discussed in quite separate policy worlds. Last year, a United Nations report found a lack of policy coherence between disaster risk management and climate change adaptation in Europe.
For example, many European insurance policies only fund "like for like" replacement after disaster, limiting people's ability to rebuild a destroyed house as a stronger, better version. Increasingly, frequent disasters are pushing the insurance industry business model to its limits .
Climate change poses threats to many interconnected systems on which we rely, from farming to roads to electricity grids to glacier-fed rivers. Worse, these threats can interact and compound . Low river levels have made it much harder to cool nuclear reactors in Hungary and Romania, raising the risk of power outages and fuelling tensions between the nations.
Compounding threats can quickly trigger economic disruption, political tension and institutional strain.
What does this mean for Australia?
Australia has long looked to Europe for policy guidance and leadership on climate change.
But if Europe is focused on responding to disasters rather than climate action, it could hamper already ailing global climate policy efforts. The Trump administration in the United States wants to keep selling gas , coal and oil. While China has emerged as the single biggest force in electrification and clean energy, it has yet to lead on climate.
At COP31, the next global climate talks in Turkey in November, Australia will take on a hard-won diplomatic role to try to get climate action back on track.
Can we respond to disaster - and get serious on climate change?
As Europe grapples with this summer's damage, we can expect to see concern about climate change increase.
Authorities can only devote so much time, money and attention to problems. There's now a real risk that intensifying immediate disasters will make it harder to tackle the underlying problem - even if citizens demand renewed action.
But if we don't get serious in bringing down emissions and reducing our vulnerability to climatic hazards, the next disasters will only be worse.
Lauren Rickards receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australian Climate Service. She is the co-chair of not-for-profit organisation Climate Change Exchange.
Hartmut Fünfgeld has received funding from the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and the German Research Foundation.
Magnus Moglia has in the last five years received funding from the iMOVE CRC, Yarra Valley Water, Sydney Water, Australian Climate Services, Victoria's Sustainability Victoria, the City of Boroondara, ACIAR and AHURI. He is on the not-for-profit Regen Melbourne's research council and is a committee member for the Macedon Ranges Sustainability Group.
