How the heat wave crippled Europe (PHOTOS, VIDEO) – RT World News

Temperatures in the upper 30s are more common in the United States. In Florida, for example, summer temperatures often reach 39-43C, while temperatures of 32-49C are typical for summer in Arizona. In Europe, however, the temperature is worse. The narrow streets of some of Europe’s capitals trap heat, as do the stone and brick houses that are common on the continent. Videos shared on social media show traffic lights melting in Italy, tram lines twisting and turning in Belgium, and road surfaces turning into liquid in Germany.

The result is worse too. The World Health Organization has linked more than 1,300 extreme deaths across Europe since June 21 to extreme heat, with French officials claiming 1,000 have died in that country alone. About 85% of the victims in France were aged 65 or over.

Has this happened before?

Europe has experienced similar heat waves in modern history. Temperatures in England reached 38C in 1911, and stayed above 35C for almost a week in 1976. Continental Europe was scorched by a heat wave in 2003, and more than 14,000 deaths were recorded in France, where temperatures stayed above 40C in some places for eight days in a row. Across Europe, up to 72,000 more deaths were linked to the heat wave, the continent’s worst since the 1540s.

Why don’t Europeans just use air conditioning?

Heat deaths are six times more than usual in the European Union than in the United States, and every time the heat hits Europe, social media is flooded with comments from confused Americans, wondering why Europeans don’t just turn on their air conditioners.

In fact, some Europeans do. Almost 100% of homes in Greece are equipped with AC, as are almost half of homes in Italy and Spain. On the other hand, AC is not much needed in cold countries like Ireland and Finland. However, in countries with a high demand for cooling, such as France and Germany, there are significant bureaucratic and ideological barriers to installing AC units.

In France, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen has promised that, if elected, her right-wing National Rally party will implement “Good weather plan,” claiming to be that country “Public services cannot function because of the lack of air conditioning, unlike many countries in the world.”

The idea was immediately dismissed by President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance and Greens parties on environmental grounds. Both showed energy consumption, and the fact that AC units increase the outside temperature by transferring heat from the house to the street. The left-wing party France Unbowed also opposes the widespread use of AC on the grounds that it could only be achieved by “Rich household.”

Audrey Pulvar, deputy mayor of Paris and self-described “environmental family member,” has taken the ideological war against AC even further, blaming the heat wave on America’s love of cold air. “As the second largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, it bears a large amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences that we, France, are experiencing,” he wrote on social media. “Your cities, which are 90% air-conditioned, have nothing to do with this.”

In Germany, opposition is synonymous with ideology. Only a third of Germany’s hospitals are equipped with AC, and the country’s powerful Green lobby maintains that allowing the technology to cool air would make it obsolete. “households tend to emit more pollutants while diverting from systemic solutions.”

In the UK, homeowners who want to install AC units are often stonewalled by local authorities. In line with the government’s plans to bring the country’s carbon emissions to zero, some building codes in the UK state that AC should only be used as “The last resort,” immediately “just chilling” methods, such as opening windows or using fans, have been implemented. According to a recent report by The Telegraph, landlords in the London boroughs of Camden and Islington have been ordered to remove AC units due to these regulations.

Although the climate is more normal in Spain than in other European countries, a 2022 government decree prohibits public spaces such as offices, shops and restaurants from keeping the thermostat below 27C.

What is the EU doing?

The European Commission has put the heat on man-made climate change, and is using the opportunity to push its European Green Deal – an ambitious strategy that makes the EU’s zero-emissions target by 2050 legal for member states. “This is a big warning sent back to nature about what it means to have a different climate system,” Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s green energy chief said on Monday. “I’m tired of hearing ‘people don’t support the green deal anymore’ … it’s not true.”

The European Union accounts for only 5-6 percent of global carbon emissions. Accordingly, and given that these emissions are the main driver of Europe’s hotter summers, it is unclear whether the European Green Deal will help mitigate future warming. What it has already done is further impoverish the camp’s citizens: the plan’s carbon credit program has artificially increased energy costs, and, along with the EU’s freeze on Russian gas imports and a drop in output from wind farms, has sent electricity prices to all-time highs in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands this week.

There are no short-term solutions

At national and EU level, few leaders are offering short-term solutions. The EU Green Deal promises to make Europe “the first climate-free continent by 2050,” a goal that may not have an effect on the summer heat. For citizens looking to avoid the next heat wave, the European Commission launched its Heat Pump Acceleration Platform last year, pushing the technology as a solution to fossil fuel dependency. Heat pumps can be replaced in the summer, pumping hot air out of buildings, but with average installation costs ten times higher than AC units (which are also efficient), they remain a solution only for those who can afford them.

Meanwhile, police in Germany have turned water cannons – usually used against protesters and rioters – into sprinklers to cool down pedestrians, and French officials have installed emergency cooling showers across Paris.

In Brussels, however, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her senior officials have been working in air-conditioned offices on the top floor of the Commission’s headquarters, while workers on the ground floor have been told that the cooling systems will be turned off. “due to bad weather,” according to a Politico report.