WWF report: Europe feels the heat – Extreme weather and the power sector (self-starting file for on-screen viewing)
The global conservation organization’s report, Europe feels the heat - Extreme weather and the power sector, shows London is the city where average maximum summer temperature increased the most, up 2°C over the last 30 years, followed by Athens and Lisbon (1.9ºC), Warsaw (1.3ºC) and Berlin (1.2ºC).
Meanwhile, the increase in average summer mean temperature was highest in Madrid - up by a staggering 2.2°C, followed by Luxembourg (2ºC), Stockholm (1.5ºC), and Brussels, Rome and Vienna (1.2ºC). In the last five years, average summer temperatures in 13 of the 16 cities looked at were at least 1ºC higher than during the first five years of the 1970s.
WWF’s report highlights the likelihood of more frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts and rainstorms as average temperatures increase, the kind of events expected as a result of global warming.
It emphasizes that the power sector has fuelled a major part of this hike in temperatures, being responsible for 37 percent of man-made CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, mainly coal.
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