Report Warns Europe Particularly Vulnerable to Climate Change
Europe will suffer worse, and sooner, than other parts of the world from climate change, according to a new report from the European Environment Agency. The report “pulls together a wealth of evidence that climate change is already happening and having widespread impacts, many of them with substantial economic costs, on people and ecosystems across Europe,” said the EEA’s Jacqueline McGlade. The continent can expect more severe heat waves and more frequent and violent storms of the kind that led to the flash flood this week that virtually destroyed the U.K. village of Boscastle. Northern Europe can expect more precipitation, while southern regions are likely to experience drought. By 2080, cold winters could almost entirely disappear. Economic damage from floods, droughts, storms, and heat waves has more than doubled in Europe over the last 20 years. The report urged, as you might expect, worldwide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
