Climate risks dwarf Europe's energy crisis, space chief warns

  

 

A Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite image shows Po River water levels in northern Italy


Italy DroughtThe dried riverbed of the Po river in Sermide, Italy, Thursday, Aug.11, 2022. The river Po runs 652 kilometers (405 miles) from the northwestern city of Turin to Venice. But Northern Italy hasn't seen rainfall for months and this year's snowfall was down by 70%. Higher than usual temperature did the rest, leaving the Po basin without its summer water reservoirs, with repercussions on its surrounding economy, tourism, and agriculture. (AP Photo/Luigi Navarra)

Thu, August 11, 2022 at 2:37 AM·4 min read

By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) - The head of the European Space Agency (ESA) has warned economic damage from heatwaves and drought could dwarf Europe's energy crisis as he called for urgent action to tackle climate change.

Director General Josef Aschbacher told Reuters successive heatwaves along with wildfires, shrinking rivers and rising land temperatures as measured from space left no doubt about the toll on agriculture and other industries from climate change.

"Today, we are very concerned about the energy crisis, and rightly so. But this crisis is very small compared to the impact of climate change, which is of a much bigger magnitude and really has to be tackled extremely fast," he said.

He was speaking in an interview as heatwaves and floods generate concerns over extreme weather across the globe.

More than 57,200 hectares have been swallowed by wildfire in France this year, nearly six times the full-year average.

In Spain, a prolonged dry spell made July the hottest month since at least 1961.

Utah's Great Salt Lake and Italy's Po River are at their lowest recorded levels. France's Loire is now on the watch list.

On Tuesday, Britain issued a new amber "Extreme Heat" warning.

That follows record temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) that placed a renewed focus on climate risks at July's Farnborough Airshow in southern England, where Aschbacher said the issue was humanity's biggest challenge.

"It's pretty bad. We have seen extremes that have not been observed before," Aschbacher told Reuters this week.

Soaring air temperatures are not the only problem. The Earth's skin is getting warmer too.

Aschbacher said ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite series had measured "extreme" land surface temperatures of more than 45C in Britain, 50C in France and 60C in Spain in recent weeks.

Land surface temperature drives air circulation.

"It's really the whole ecosystem that is changing very, very fast and much faster than what scientists expected until some years ago," he said.

"It is drought, fires, intensity of storms, everything coupled together, which are the visible signs of climate change."

As changes in temperature also become more marked, winds become stronger and unleash harsher storms.

"Typhoons are much more powerful than they used to be in terms of wind speed and therefore damage," Aschbacher said.

BREXIT FUNDING GAP

The Austrian scientist was named head of Paris-based ESA last year after leading the 22-nation agency's Earth observation work including Copernicus, which ESA says is the world's largest environmental monitoring effort, co-led by the European Union.

Together, the programme's six families of Sentinel satellites aim to read the planet's "vital signs" from carbon dioxide to wave height or temperatures of land and oceans.

Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite images taken on roughly the same day in June between 2020 and 2022, released by ESA, show how the drought-stricken Po - whose plains sustain a third of Italy's agriculture - has retreated to expose broad sandbanks.

But the programme faces a Brexit funding gap of 750 million euros ($774 million) needed to help develop a second generation of satellites that Britain was to have contributed via the European Union and whose fate is now under discussion.

After leaving the EU last year, Britain remains a member of ESA and its 170-million-euro direct contribution is unaffected.

"We do still need the 750 million to complete development of this second generation of satellites," Aschbacher said.

"And yes, that is certainly an issue for climate monitoring globally but (also) for Europe in particular, because many of these parameters are aiming at priorities for Europe."

A funding package for Earth observation worth an estimated 3 billion euros will be discussed by ESA ministers in November.

Aschbacher dismissed what he called two myths voiced by critics who question the international climate drive.

"The first is that people think one can wait and by waiting somehow we will tough it out," he said. "The second is that it will cost a lot of money to deal with climate change ... and affect the poorest people, and we shouldn't do it," he said, adding that failing to heed warnings like this year's weather crisis could cost hundreds of trillions of dollars this century.

"Of course, you always have weather fluctuations ... but never of this magnitude. There is no doubt in my mind that this is caused by climate change," Aschbacher told Reuters.

($1 = 0.9685 euros)

(Reporting by Tim Hepher Additional reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Mark Potter)

'Hitting rock bottom' - drought, heat drain Spanish reservoirs

Wed, August 10, 2022 
By Vincent West

CIJARA, Spain (Reuters) - A flock of sheep shelter from the midday sun under the gothic arches of a medieval bridge flooded in 1956 to create the Cijara reservoir in central Spain, but now fully exposed as the reservoir is 84% empty after a severe drought.

In Andalusia, one of Europe's hottest and driest regions, paddle-boats and waterslides lie abandoned on the cracked bed of Vinuela reservoir, remnants of a rental business gone with the water, now at a critical level of 13%.

A nearby restaurant fears a similar fate.

"The situation is quite dramatic in the sense that it's been several years without rain and we're hitting rock bottom," said owner Francisco Bazaga, 52. "If it doesn't rain, unless they find some alternative water supply, the future is very, very dark."

A prolonged dry spell and extreme heat made July the hottest month in Spain since at least 1961. Spanish reservoirs are at just 40% of capacity on average in early August, well below the ten-year average of around 60%, official data shows.

"We are in a particularly dry year, a very difficult year that confirms what climate change scenarios have been highlighting," Energy Minister Teresa Ribera told a news conference on Monday, also highlighting that the drought was leading to devastating wildfires.

Climate change has left parts of the Iberian peninsula at their driest in 1,200 years, and winter rains are expected to diminish further, a study published last month by the Nature Geoscience journal showed.

The dry, hot weather is likely to continue into the autumn, Spain's meteorological service AEMET said in a recent report, putting further strain on Europe's largest network of dammed reservoirs with a holding capacity of 5.6 billion cubic metres.

At the Buendia reservoir east of Madrid, the ruins of a village and bathhouses have reappeared, caked in dried mud, Reuters drone footage showed, while at another dam near Barcelona a ninth-century Romanesque church has reemerged still intact, attracting visitors.

(Additional reporting by Albert Gea, Jon Nazca, Susana Vera, Borja Suarez, Editing by Andrei Khalip and Jane Merriman)

Wildfires burn, farmers struggle as another heatwave bakes western Europe






Wildfires continue to spread in the Gironde region

Thu, August 11, 2022 at 6:27 AM·4 min read
By Manuel Ausloos and Stephane Mahe

HOSTENS, France (Reuters) - European nations sent firefighting teams to help France tackle a "monster" wildfire on Thursday, while forest blazes also raged in Spain and Portugal and the head of the European Space Agency urged immediate action to combat climate change.

More than 1,000 firefighters, backed by water-bombing planes, battled for a third day a fire that has forced thousands from their homes and scorched thousands of hectares of forest in France's southwestern Gironde region.

With a dangerous cocktail of blistering temperatures, tinder-box conditions and wind fanning the flames, emergency services were struggling to bring the fire under control.


"It's an ogre, a monster," said Gregory Allione from the French firefighters body FNSPF said.

Heatwaves, floods and crumbling glaciers in recent weeks have heightened concerns over climate change and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather across the globe.

The head of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, said rising land temperatures and shrinking rivers as measured from space left no doubt about the toll on agriculture and other industries from climate change.

ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite series has measured "extreme" land surface temperatures of more than 45C (113F) in Britain, 50C in France and 60C in Spain in recent weeks.

"It's pretty bad. We have seen extremes that have not been observed before," Aschbacher told Reuters.

In Romania, where record temperatures and drought have drained rivers of water, Greenpeace activists protested on the parched banks of the Danube to draw attention to global warming and urge the government to lower emissions.

CLIMATE CHANGE RISKS

With successive heatwaves baking Europe this summer, searing temperatures and unprecedented droughts, renewed focus has been placed on climate change risks to farming, industry and livelihoods.

Severe drought is set to slash the European Union's maize harvest by 15%, dropping it to a 15-year a low, just as Europeans contend with higher food prices as a result of lower-than-normal grain exports from Russia and Ukraine.

Swiss army helicopters have been drafted in to airlift water to thirsty cows, pigs and goats sweltering under a fierce sun in the country's Alpine meadows.

In France, suffering its harshest drought on record, trucks are delivering water to dozens of villages where taps have run dry, nuclear power stations have received waivers to keep pumping hot discharge water into river, and farmers warn a fodder shortfall may lead to milk shortages.

In Germany, scant rainfall this summer has drained the water levels of the Rhine, the country's commercial artery, hampering shipping and pushing freight costs.

However, as Europe contends with another heatwave, one group of workers has little choice but to sweat it out: gig-economy food couriers who often fall between the cracks of labour regulations.

After the mayor of Palermo on the island of Sicily in July ordered horses carrying tourists be given at least 10 litres of water per day, bicycle courier Gaetano Russo filed a suit demanding similar treatment.

"Am I worth less than a horse," Russo was quoted as saying in a Nidil CDIL union statement.

"HEARTBROKEN"

Britain's Met Office on Thursday issued a four-day "extreme heat" warning for parts of England and Wales.

In Portugal, more than 1,500 firefighters spent a sixth day fighting a wildfire in the central Covilha region that has burned 10,500 hectares (40 square miles), including parts of the Serra da Estrela national park.

In Spain, electrical storms triggered new wildfires and hundreds of people were evacuated from the path of one blaze in the province of Caceres.

Macron's office said extra fire-fighting aircraft were arriving from Greece and Sweden, while Germany, Austria, Romania and Poland were all deploying firefighters to help tackle wildfires in France.

"European solidarity at work!" Macron tweeted.

Firefighters said they had managed to save the village of Belin-Beliet, which emptied after police told residents to evacuate as the flames approached. But the blaze reached the outskirts, leaving behind charred houses and ruined tractors.

"We've been lucky. Our houses were saved. But you see the catastrophe over there. Some houses could not be saved," said resident Gaetan, pointing to houses burnt to the ground.

The Gironde was hit by big wildfires in July.

"The area is totally disfigured. We're heartbroken, we're exhausted," Jean-Louis Dartiailh, a local mayor, told Radio Classique. "(This fire) is the final straw."

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Wildfires spread, fish die off amid severe drought in Europe

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SYLVIE CORBET and VANESSA GERA
Thu, August 11, 2022 at 2:21 AM·5 min read


PARIS (AP) — Firefighters from across Europe struggled Thursday to contain a huge wildfire in France that has swept through a large swath of pine forest, while Germans and Poles faced a mass fish die-off in a river flowing between their countries.

Europe is suffering under a severe heat wave and drought that has produced tragic consequences for farmers and ecosystems already under threat from climate change and pollution.

The drought is causing a loss of agricultural products and other food at a time when supply shortages and Russia's war against Ukraine have caused inflation to spike.

In France, which is enduring its worst drought on record, flames raged through pine forests overnight, illuminating the sky with an intense orange light in the Gironde region, which was already ravaged by flames last month, and in neighboring Landes. More than 68 square kilometers (26 square miles) have burned since Tuesday.

The French wildfires have already forced the evacuation of about 10,000 people and destroyed at least 16 houses.

Along the Oder River, which flows from Czechia north into the Baltic Sea, volunteers have been collecting dead fish that have washed ashore in Poland and Germany.

Piotr Nieznanski, the conservation policy director at WWF Poland, said it appears that a toxic chemical was released into the water by an industry and the low water levels caused by the drought has made conditions far more dangerous for the fish.

“A tragic event is happening along the Oder River, an international river, and there is no transparent information about what is going on,” he said, calling on government authorities to investigate.

People living along the river have been warned not to swim in the water or even touch it.

Poland’s state water management body said the drought and high temperatures can cause even small amounts of pollution to lead to an ecological disaster but it has not identified the source of the pollution.

In northern Serbia, the dry bed of the Conopljankso reservoir is now littered with dead fish that were unable to survive the drought.

The water level along Germany's Rhine River was at risk of falling so low that it could become difficult to transport goods — including critical energy items like coal and gasoline.

In Italy, which is experiencing its worst drought in seven decades, the parched Po River has already caused billions of euros in losses to farmers who normally rely on Italy's longest river to irrigate their fields and rice paddies.

“I am young and I do not remember anything like this, but even the elderly in my village or the other villages around here have never seen anything like this, never ever,” said Antonio Cestari, a 35-year-old farmer in Ficarolo who says he expects to produce only half his usual crops of corn, wheat and soy because his river-fed wells have such low water levels.

The Po runs 652 kilometers (405 miles) from the northwestern city of Turin to Venice. It has dozens of tributary rivers but northern Italy hasn’t seen rainfall for months and this year’s snowfall was down by 70%. The drying up of the Po is also jeopardizing drinking water in Italy’s densely populated and highly industrialized districts.

Over in Portugal, the Serra da Estrela national park was also being ravaged by a wildfire. Some 1,500 firefighters, 476 vehicles and 12 aircraft were deployed to fight it but the wind-driven blaze 250 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Lisbon was very hard to reach, with inaccessible peaks almost 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) high and deep ravines. The fire has charred 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of woodland.

In Britain, where temperatures hit a record 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in July, the weather office has issued a new warning for “extreme heat” from Thursday through Sunday, with temperatures forecast to reach 36 C (96.8 F).

It has been one of the driest summers on record in southern Britain, and the Met Office weather service said there is an “exceptional risk” of wildfires over the next few days.

London Fire Brigade said its control room had dealt with 340 grass, garbage and open-land fires during the first week of August, eight times the number from last year. Assistant Commissioner Jonathan Smith said “the grass in London is tinderbox dry and the smallest of sparks can start a blaze which could cause devastation.”

In Switzerland, a drought and high temperatures have endangered fish populations and authorities have begun moving fish out of some creeks that were running dry.

In Hausen, in the canton of Zurich, officials caught hundreds of fish, many of them brown trout, in the almost dried-up Heischerbach, Juchbach and Muehlebach creeks this week by anesthetizing them with electric shocks and then immediately placing them in a water tank enriched with oxygen, local media reported. Later, the fish were taken to creeks that still carry enough water.

Despite all the harm caused by the extreme weather, Swiss authorities see one morbid upside: they believe there's hope of finding some people who went missing in the mountains in the last few years because their bodies are being released as glaciers melt.

In the Swiss canton of Valais, melting glaciers have recently revealed parts of a crashed airplane and, at separate locations, at least two skeletons. The bodies have not yet been identified, news website 20Minuten reported Thursday.

Spanish state television showed dozens of trucks heading to France having to turn around and stay in Spain because wildfires had forced authorities to close some border crossings. TVE reported that truckers, many carrying perishable goods, were looking for ways to cross the border because the parking areas around the Irun crossing were full.

France this week is in its fourth heat wave of the year as it faces what the government describes as the country's worst drought on record. Temperatures were expected to reach 40 C (104 F) on Thursday.

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Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland. Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Jill Lawless in London, Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Andrea Rosa in Ficarolo, Italy and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed reporting.

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Follow all AP stories on climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.