Summer Europe felt like a Gamechanger. Will next year be different? | Today’s news

(Bloomberg) — The weather in Europe this summer has caused widespread consternation and concern. Weeks without rain, record temperatures, failed harvests and widespread fires were hard to ignore for the public, for investors – and for politicians.

With the natural El Niño phenomenon becoming one of the strongest ever recorded, meteorologists are now looking ahead to next summer. While it’s too early to predict exactly what will happen, the UK Met Office already says 2027 is likely to rival 2024 as Europe’s hottest year on record. Even if that doesn’t happen, climate change means that future heat waves will be longer, more intense and more frequent than the record ones we’re having now.

“The heatwaves and the bushfires have really been direct evidence that people can no longer ignore in front of their eyes,” says Beatrice Mosello, senior research fellow at the Chatham House think tank. “It’s not just one event that causes disruption over a period of time. It has impacts on so many different levels of our economy, our society.”

This concern is reflected in opinion polls. After a record heat wave in France, an Ipsos survey in July found a 12-point increase in concerns about the environment. Polls in Austria and the UK followed the same trend, which researchers at Austrian market research firm INTEGRAL attributed to people’s direct experience of the heat and a sense that the country is ill-prepared.

And there are some signs that governments are taking climate change more into account in their policies. In Germany, the environment minister is pushing to change the constitution and increase the central government’s responsibility for climate adaptation after local governments said they did not have the resources to manage it effectively. In Spain, officials have announced more funding for climate shelters, where people can seek shelter from the heat, and for air conditioning in schools. In the UK, the Health Secretary said the National Health Service must prepare for greater demand in the summer, just as the service is currently planning for the winter.

But tangible changes will usually take longer. One example is European hospitals. Many are in older buildings in built-up urban areas and lack comprehensive air conditioning, making them particularly prone to overheating. In the UK, nurses are fainting on the job and medical staff have warned that the conditions are unsafe.

“I am optimistic that adaptation to heatwaves will be a higher priority in the NHS,” says Chris Naylor, senior health policy officer at the King’s Fund, a not-for-profit research organisation. “Whether that happens in time for the summer of 2027, I’m less convinced.”

Some operations have been postponed this summer due to the heat. He added that it has focused minds in the health care industry as providers are under pressure to clear a significant waiting list. Even so, managers of hospitals and other healthcare facilities have many other demands on their time and budgets.

The NHS said in a statement in August that it had put in place “a number of measures to make conditions more pleasant for staff”. Those measures include deploying portable air conditioners and adapting uniforms, the health service said.

Installing air conditioning and better insulation in hundreds of hospitals may not happen in the short term, Naylor says, but measures such as solar control glazing, reflective coatings on building roofs and better ventilation at night would help and be faster.

Adjustment efforts in various sectors are being challenged by strained national budgets and many demands competing for the attention of European governments, including the wars in Iran and Ukraine, strained relations with the US and voters frustrated by inflation and political instability.

How to handle the heat is also controversial. Right-wing populist politicians have seized on climate change as a political wedge issue, accusing policymakers of prioritizing net-zero priorities over the comfort of their citizens, while in some cases denying, against the scientific consensus, that humans are causing climate change at all.

Adaptation can also bring new challenges. Summer weather has sparked a rush to install air conditioners in Europe, meaning many more people will have access to cooling. But this creates a new vulnerability: European networks now have to contend with summer demand peaks. This summer, the UK network issued several warnings about the mismatch between supply and demand.

It would not be the first crisis to be hailed as a wake-up call to a world that would ultimately bring little concrete change.

It may also be one that is different, says Emma Howard Boyd, chair of Britain’s independent National Heat Risks Commission, given this year’s persistent heatwave and its aftermath, including fires, business disruption, power and water cuts and public spaces visibly parched after weeks without rain.

“The knowledge that things are only going to get worse really needs to be embraced at all levels of government,” he says. “It’s still up to all of us,” as summer ends and temperatures drop, “to remember to be better prepared next year.”

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