How Would Climate Change Look for Europe?
By Mehak Kulaar
Accelerating economic action and fossil fuel ignition in the last century have hastened climate change impact to phenomenal extents. Ecosystem decline, loss of biodiversity, and stratospheric ozone consumption are a portion of these climate changes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned from time to time over the risk to billions of people due to water scarcity, chronic diseases, food shortages and the need to develop efficient systems to deal with climate shocks and by cutting emissions fast.
While countries like India and China that are close to the equator are already dealing with climate change with extreme heatwaves, floods in the coastal areas on a yearly basis. Europe as a continent is still unaware of the future consequences of a drastic climate-related shift. However, the European Union has begun identifying the consequences and setting up policies for the same.
Heat Wave
The European heatwave of 2003 that was recorded as the hottest August in half a millennium, temperatures in the high 30s veiled over much of the continent for quite a long time. The EU estimated a total of 80,000 people died due to it.
Citizens of countries with lower temperatures are not able to adjust to the shift as their body temp is not used to such high temperatures putting them directly at risk of severe heat strokes
Under any future warming situation, a summer like 2003 will be disturbingly ordinary. As per
European cities are at present commonly 5 to 10 degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside. In case little is done to decrease worldwide outflows, Europe’s cities could warm up to 6 to 10 degrees. The southern parts of Europe will see a way worse heat wave compared to the north.
Farming Crisis
While there is good news, for at least some of Europe’s farmers, is that climate change can convey victors as having frost-free winters will prompt a new crop cycle annually. Countries like India, Vietnam and Sri Lanka along with several others have more than one growing season that keeps the cycle going year-round. However Warmer winters, longer growing seasons and more rain mean parts of Europe, specifically the north, will create more food than today.
For different parts of the continent, nonetheless, a warmer world spells disaster. Climate change will draw a curtain of rain across Europe. While Higher altitudes will experience more rain, Southern Europe will dry up. Droughts are likely to get more frequent and extreme, crawling across Europe’s southern and central plains.
The areas bordering the Mediterranean will be hard hit, as these areas will experience droughts that are likely to grow from 28% to 49 per cent.
The deficiency of rain will make it harder to grow many staple crops in Southern Europe. Farmers will see conventional crops flee north.
Floods & Forest Fires
Extremes of heat, dryness and rainfall will grow Europe’s floodplains and fire zones, making the lives and properties of millions of individuals unpredictable. Following the forest fires of 2021 in large parts of Greece, cities are now scrambling to protect their citizens from growing dangers.
Europe’s sewers weren’t made for climate change. Buildings, concrete or asphalt seal the soil, leaving fewer escape ways for rain and causing flood-like situations. That is a danger for Paris, Thessaloniki, Bucharest and Barcelona, the European Environment Agency cautioned a couple of years ago.
Rain isn’t the only unpredictable pattern that is causing problems. Sea level rise is further driving up the dangers of extreme and permanent flooding along Europe’s coasts — particularly for individuals living in low-lying urban cities in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and portions of the Italian coast.
Diseases
The impact on public health from climate change may be far-reaching and include deaths and hospitalizations due to heat waves; hypothermia from blizzards; injuries and death from flooding; and potential shifts in the transmission ranges of vector-borne diseases such as hantavirus, West Nile virus, tick-borne encephalitis, Lyme disease, Malaria and Dengue. Most importantly, the potential population health impacts of climate changes extend far into the future, if conditions deteriorate further.
Temperature fluctuation has also prodded the breeding of several species of mosquitoes that previously could not survive due to low temperatures. An especially prolific disease carrier: the Asian tiger mosquito, can not spread chikungunya at a set temperature of 18 degrees, but with rise in temperature, the breeding will become easy and spread rapidly.
What is the European Union doing to prepare for a better future?
The EU has adopted ambitious legislation across different policy areas to implement its global commitments on climate change. EU countries have set binding emission targets for key areas of the economy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In December 2020, in lieu of the EU’s commitment to building its climate aspiration in accordance with the Paris Agreement. In April 2021, the Council and the Parliament agreed on the European climate law which aims to decrease 55% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
A Climate Neutral EU
Precisely a year prior to setting a new emission decrease target, EU leaders endorsed the goal of achieving a climate-neutral EU by 2050 during a meeting of the European Council. This implies that between now and 2050, the EU will drastically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
EU leaders have also to put in place an enabling framework “Just Transition Mechanism” to ensure that the transition is cost-effective, as well as socially balanced and fair.
While Europe is still in the premature stages of climate change, other regions like South East Asia, all of Australia are already at the alarming stage of the Climate Shift. Countries like India where climate change is no longer just about protecting the environment rather as much a question of national security and patriotism to help protect the geography, natural resources and citizens. It is only right to be aware of the invisible enemy and to act on time to help tame it just like the European Union along with the United States of America are.