Europe is the fastest-warming continent, and climate risks threaten its energy, food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial stability, and people’s health, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA) in a report published today. According to the agency, many of these risks have already reached critical levels and could become catastrophic without immediate and decisive action.
“The extreme heat, drought, forest fires and floods that we have experienced in recent years in Europe will worsen, including in an optimistic climate warming scenario, and will affect the living conditions of the entire continent,” the agency wrote in a statement presenting its first climate risk assessment report.
“These events represent the new norm,” EEA Director Leena Ylä-Mononen told reporters, adding that they should also be a warning sign, reports Agence France Presse. The study lists 36 leading climate risks for Europe, of which 21 require immediate action and eight an urgent response.
In the first place among them are the risks related to the ecosystem, mainly related to the seas and the coast. For example, the combined effects of sea heat waves, acidification and depletion of oxygen in the seas and other anthropogenic factors such as pollution and fishing, threaten the functioning of marine ecosystems, the report says.
“They can cause significant biodiversity loss, including mass extinctions,” the report added. The EEA believes that it is a priority that European governments and citizens unanimously recognize the risks and accept that they need to do more and act faster.
“We need to do more, to have stronger policies,” Ylä-Mononen said. However, the agency acknowledged that “significant progress” has been made in understanding and preparing for climate risks.
For the EEA, the most exposed zones are in the south of Europe (fires, water shortages and their effects on agricultural production, the impact of heat on outdoor work and health) and in lower coastal areas threatened by floods, erosion, saltwater intrusion. However, even northern Europe is not spared, this institution emphasizes, and points to recent floods in Germany or forest fires in Sweden, Beta reports.
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