The temperature in Europe increased by 2.3°C compared to the pre-industrial era (1850-1900), at a rate twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, the UN and the European Copernicus program announced.

While the entire planet the temperature rose by 1.2°C due to gas emissions which cause the greenhouse effect, “Europe is the fastest warming region of the world”, recalls Professor Petri Taalas, Secretary General of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization in the report released today.

In November, the World Meteorological Organization had announced that Europe’s temperature was rising at a rate of 0.5°C per decade, that is, twice as fast as the average of five other meteorological regions of the planet.

In most of Europe, “high temperatures have exacerbated severe and widespread droughts, fueled fierce forest fires that are responsible for the largest burnt area ever recorded on the European continent and caused excess deaths in the thousands due to heat waves”states Petri Taalas in the introduction of the report.

According to the Emergencies Database (EM-DAT), extreme meteorological, hydrological and climate events in Europe in 2022 directly affected 156,000 people and caused 16,365 deaths, almost exclusively due to heat waves.

Since 1980, meteorological disasters (heatwaves, floods…) have caused the death of 195,000 people, the European Environment Agency announced today.

Economic losses, mostly associated with floods and storms, are estimated at about $2 billion for the year 2022, far less than 2021’s $50 billion due to flooding.

The year 2022 “unfortunately, is not a unique case or climate paradox,” comments Carlo Buodembo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Observatory (C3S).

“It is part of a trend that will make extreme heat stress events more frequent and intense across the region.”

A rare glimmer of hope in the report: last year in Europe, renewables produced more electricity (22.3%) than fossil fuels (20%) for the first time.