Earlier this month, the UK’s Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch announced a major watering down of the Party’s flagship climate policy, arguing that the UK’s target of reaching net zero by 2050 cannot be met “without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”.
Let’s hope Badenoch found the time to tune into the Copernicus State of the EU Climate Report for 2024 last week, which found that, across Europe (and including the UK), people are already suffering a serious drop in living standards and mounting financial and economic losses as a result of climate change.
Data from 2024 shows that 45 per cent of the days were warmer than average, and 12 per cent of days in 2024 were the warmest on record. There have also been record levels of warming across the Arctic, that in turn could be triggering the weakening of Atlantic currents and AMOC, and ice loss of up to 93 per cent from Europe’s dwindling Alpine glaciers.
In fact, Europe’s ski resorts face an existential threat from climate change, according to a 2023 journal article in Nature Climate Change, which projected that more than half of Europe’s ski resorts will face a severe lack of snow if temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
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However, it is water rather than snow that should probably worry us most. The 2022 IPCC 6th Assessment Report highlighted that Europe is one of the regions with the highest projected increase in flood risk. The Copernicus report notes that urgent action is needed, as the risk severity is projected to reach critical or catastrophic levels by the mid to late century, defined as the irreversible loss of system functionality. That’s a scenario where urban and coastal areas are abandoned when it is not possible to protect them.
Europe experienced widespread flooding in 2024, and 12 per cent of Europe’s river network exceeded the “severe” flood threshold. The flooding from Storm Boris over four days in September caused extensive damage in eight member states. At least 335 people died during flooding events, 224 of them in the Valencia floods in early November, during which 771.8mm of rain fell in just 24 hours. To put this in perspective, Dublin receives on average 683mm of rainfall every year.
Some 413,000 people across Europe were affected by storms and flooding events in 2024, and 42,000 people were impacted by wildfires. The economic impacts of flood events in particular have been enormous, with estimated losses of €18.2 billion in 2024.
And all of that is “just” at 1.5 degrees of warming. These dangerous weather phenomena are bound to become more frequent and even more devastating, as global heating continues and possibly accelerates in a non-linear fashion, triggering feedback loops, tipping points and cascading effects. These are the issues that will bankrupt us and destroy our living standards.
Yet, while Europe is making some progress at producing renewable electricity (45 per cent of total production), there is a mounting gap between what needs to be done, and what is actually being done at member state level. Climate Action Network Europe recently published a review of 25 National Climate and Energy Plans finding systemic weaknesses in national climate policies, glaring gaps and inconsistencies between the stated targets and planned measures, policies and investments.
Trump’s dismissal of climate policy and his crazy tariff escapades, which have caused wobbles in the oil and gas sectors too, have also revealed the weakness – shallowness even – of European climate commitments. Several German industries are now calling for renewed Russian gas imports, and some member states are backtracking on the EU’s climate commitments with the Commission’s 2040 climate target decision now postponed until summer.
There is much talk in Brussels of the EU purchasing international carbon credits to help reach its commitments under the Paris Agreement, which is described by Brussels NGO Carbon Market Watch as “short-sighted and irresponsible”.
Europe needs responsible policies to scale up energy efficiency, sustainable agriculture and renewable energy, and phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible and well before 2050. The EU has a legal, moral and economic obligation to act, and to act fast, and fairly.
But every time a measure reaches the council or parliament, an army of industry lobbyists descends on the process determined to water it down and delay action. With the assistance of the centre-right groupings in the parliament, they often succeed. Emboldened by the election of fossil-friendly autocrats around the world, the oil and gas industry is abandoning its green pledges and betting on a world that is 3 degrees warmer by 2100. But that world will be a hellscape for millions, if not billions, of people.
Eventually, physics will trump economics, no matter what Trump himself says, and 2024’s grim statistics are just a foretaste of what is to come.
Sadhbh O’Neill is an environmental and climate researcher
