EU predicts grim future for Europe's weather

Increasingly frequent storms, floods, droughts and other extreme weather across Europe are consequences of global warming and other climate changes, the European Environment Agency said today.

Its report that draws a grim picture of rising sea levels, melting glaciers in the Alps and deadly heat waves.

The 107-page report by the EU agency ”underlines that strategies are needed, at European, regional, national and local levels to adapt to climate change”, said Jacqueline McGlade, the EEA’s executive director.

“Europe has to continue to lead worldwide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” McGlade said.

The climate changes “will considerably affect our societies and environments for decades and centuries to come”, she said in a statement in connection with the release of the report: Impacts of Europe’s Changing Climate.

Global warming is believed to be caused by human activities, in particular emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

In a statement issued by the Copenhagen-based agency, McGlade called for the ratification of the 1997 UN pact for combating climate change, known as the Kyoto Protocol.

The protocol aims to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions worldwide in 2010 to 8% below 1990 levels. The emissions degrade the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

The United States, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has refused to sign, arguing the agreement would be harmful to its economy.

So far 123 countries, including all 25 EU members, have signed. But without Russia or the United States the accord cannot take effect, because it must be ratified by nations representing 55% of the industrialised world’s emissions.

Russian officials said earlier this year that it was unlikely their country would ratify any time soon.

The 1990s were the warmest decade on record, and the three hottest years recorded – 1998, 2002 and 2003 – occurred in the last six years, the EEA said. The global warming rate is now almost 0.2 C per decade.

The report singled out summer floods across Europe two years ago and last year’s summer heat wave in western and southern Europe as recent examples of how destructive extreme weather can be.

The flooding killed about 80 people in 11 countries, affected more than 600,000 and caused economic losses of at least €14.8bn, according to the agency.

More than 20,000 deaths, many among elderly people, were recorded during the European heat wave in 2003, which also caused up to 30% of crop harvests in many southern countries to fail, the EEA said.

Melting reduced the mass of the Alpine glaciers by one-tenth in 2003 alone, and three quarters of those glaciers could disappear by 2050, the report said.

Sea levels along European shores rose by 0.8-3.0mm per year in the last century. The rate of increase is projected to be two to four times higher during this century.

The EEA covers the 25 EU countries and Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.