Southern Europe is burning hot with many districts on red alert
Weather alerts are not unknown in France during the height of summer, when temperatures in the Deep South typically nudge 30 degrees Celsius. But this year – like last – has proved exceptional. Nineteen of the country’s 100 departments have been placed on red alert, meaning scorching heat, often made worse by swirling breezes that increase the risk of wildfires.
The new afternoon average for the Rhone Valley, stretching from a little south of Lyon all the way to Marseille and Montepellier, is in the mid-to-high 30s, with 40 and above not unusual. Further north, where the thermometer is more likely to register 25 degrees in mid-afternoon, violent storms have raged intermittently throughout the summer, sometimes extending into the upland regions of the Massif Central and the Alps.
Only in the far north and northwest, from Brittany through Normandy and the Mayenne to Picardy and Calais, is the situation more or less stable. In these green regions, July and August have in fact seen more rain and less sunshine than usual, disappointing those Parisians who eschewed the Riviera this year in a bid to avoid what they were advised would be an unbearable heatwave, or canicule.
Drought, the inevitable consequence of too much Sun, is widespread throughout France, not only in the South, where restrictions on use are widespread, and feuds have broken out between farmers anxious to conserve their access to wells and ponds.
The water table in two-thirds of the country has dropped significantly. Reservoirs and rivers have fallen to near-record lows. Acquifiers long considered reliable are drying up. Adding insult to injury, much the water resulting from the heavy rainfall that has often accompanied the high temperatures has either avaporated or else run off the hard earth without reaching more than a few centimetres below the surface.
Thus far, there have been fewer wildfires than was the case last year, when 72,000 hectares (178,000 acres) of land were scorched and some 60,000 people, including holiday-makers, had to be evacuated. France is better prepared in 2023. There are strict regulations in place. Not only officials, but ordinary citizens, are much more vigilant. The number of firefighting aircraft, known as water-bombers, has been increased from 38 to 47, and some 3,600 reserve pompiers have been placed on full alert, ready to be sent to wherever fires break out.
From an economic perspective, the prospect of boiling hot summers in the years to come is not encouraging. Farmers – especially wine-growers – have adapted to local conditions down the centuries. This summer production of barley in France actually rose by 8.2 per cent as a result of high rainfall in the central belt in June, and some wine regions, including Champagne and Burgundy, anticipate above-average crops. But adaptation has limits. Farmers depend on sunshine and warmth to ripen their crops. But after a prolonged canicule, corn yields drop and grapes wither on the wine. Most of all, farmers require a steady supply of water. If they don’t get what they need, there will in future be less of everything and everything will cost more, from fine wines to frozen peas.
Away from the countryside, the residents of towns and cities expect to be able to turn on their taps and flush their toilets in the reasonable belief that water will flow. And everybody, whether on a factory production line in Toulouse or in a hotel in Cannes, demands to stay cool even when it is 38 degrees in the shade – a human right (as it is now seen) that has led to a surge in demand for fans and air-conditioning units, the use of which is placing a strain on the national grid at a time when the Government has been doing its utmost to hold down prices.
For the moment, tourism across France is once more thriving after the Covid-based recession. Paris is jam-packed with Americans and Chinese. The beaches of La Rochelle and Les Sables d’Oléron are, as Jeremy Corbyn would say, “rammed”. But the heat is too much along the Côte d’Azur, where the temperature as I write, on Wednesday afternoon, has moved between 34 and 40 degrees.
As for the beneficiaries of climate change, Brittany stands out. Not only are house prices in the verdant Northwest rising faster than almost anywhere else in France, there is even talk of new vineyards being planned to take up the slack created by falling production further south.
What is happening in France is not, of course, unique. The situation in much of Italy, Spain and Portugal is worse, as it is across the entirety of Greece and the southern Balkans. Even Germany and the Benelux countries – to say nothing of the UK and Ireland – have been impacted by changing weather patterns. And the same is true of large parts of the rest of the world, including, right now, California.
So should we all be beating our breasts and glueing ourselves to the M25? Probably not, at least not yet. But even those who have no time for the foolishness of Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil are increasingly aware of the need to do something about the Big Heat. They may or may not endorse the goal of Net Zero by 2050, but they do get annoyed when their taps run dry and they do see the sense in retreating to the beachside bar when the sun outside puts on its after-burners. The arguments over climate change will continue whatever the weather. What is needed, regardless of political loyalties, is a general acceptance that governments and local authorities must react, and react fast, to whatever conditions look to be coming down the line.
We would all agree that water companies should be compelled to fix leaks as a matter of urgency – urgent meaning, as Churchill was wont to say, action this day. Fines are not enough. Fines are baked in. If the directors and their top management teams can‘t, or won’t, do what has to be done, their franchises should be withdrawn with minimal compensation.
Homes need to be better ventilated as well as better insulated. Geothermal units have to be made cheaper and more efficient and adapted as a matter of course to provide cool air in summer as well as warm air in winter. New-generation solar power and wind power are proving their worth wherever they have been tried. If there are going to be more heatwaves and more storms, we should at least try to make the best of them.
Europe’s towns and cities must plant more trees and provide more fountains and more shaded public areas. Populations living south of the continent’s equivalent of the Mason-Dixon Line (roughly from Bordeaux to Munich and on to Kyiv) have to be a lot more sparing in their use of water, ultimately the most vital natural resource of them all. Individuals everywhere have to increase their functional awareness of the dangers of too much sun. A light tan is one thing, a deeper bronze is an invitation to skin cancer. When factoring in the right sun cream, it makes sense to start the count at 50.
In short, society has to become more grown-up in its adjustment to extreme weather. We need to act as if there might be no tomorrow, which if we don’t there might not be.
Other than that, enjoy the rest of the summer. As Mungo Jerry said, “Life’s for living, yeah, that’s our philoso-fee.”
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