Reader Q&A live: we answer your questions about Europe’s hellish week of heat

Our European environment correspondent Ajit Niranjan answers your questions on the climate after reporting on the shocking heatwave that continues to scorch its way across Europe, covering everything from the lack of preparation to ways to deal with the heat AnCom52 asks: have a simple question – is there a realistic way back, or, to be more precise, a way out of this mess? Considering the current political climate (pun not intended), reluctance to act etc … I understand it is maybe hard to answer question such as this. Ajit: To stabilise temperatures at a still-not-safe level, the world must stop burning fossil fuels, protect and restore nature, and actively suck some carbon out of the atmosphere. Most of that can be done with behavioural changes and technologies that are already fairly cheap – think solar panels, electric cars, batteries and heat pumps – but some things like planes and many factories are still open questions. Is a shift likely to happen in the current political climate? Certainly not as fast as scientists have shown it would need to happen to avoid extreme suffering. Still, the prices of some clean alternatives have fallen so fast that it would take active political will to stop them – and while we are seeing examples of this , it seems likely to slow the transition rather than derail it altogether. Ajit: I share your bewilderment at the surprise some people and politicians have expressed in the last week. Still, it’s worth saying we have made some meaningful progress on heat even as temperatures have risen. Europe was hit by a horrific heatwave in 2003, with 70,000 heat-related deaths that summer. Scientists think if a heatwave of similar strength were to hit today, the death toll would be about 75% smaller. They can’t easily isolate the causes weakening the temperature-mortality relationship, but experts point to a mix of early warning systems, heat action plans and people adapting their behaviour when temperatures rise. More broadly, though, I think you’re right that there’s much more going on than just fossil fuel industry influence on public debate. We are now at a point where active denial of climate change is in the single digit percentages across western Europe, yet far-right parties who engage in exactly that are polling well above 20%. In most cases, the dominant centre-right parties in those countries are actively campaigning to weaken existing climate ambition, though outside the UK they have refrained from calling to abandon net zero emissions targets. Continue reading...