Europe's new normal: A continent on fire

Europe is having its warmest sustained heatwave in over 50 years. Climate change means these are temperatures we need to get used to, writes Padraig Hoare

Fighting flames at the Gironde region near Landiras, southwestern France. Picture: AP

Suffocating urban temperatures, out of control raging wildfires, and new record-setting heatwaves forming just weeks after previous ones — this is Europe’s new normal as the ravages of climate change grip the continent.

Earlier this year, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in its annual European State of the Climate report that the continent experienced the warmest summer on record in 2021, at 1C above the 1991-2020 average.