The UK on Tuesday saw its hottest day ever, as the mercury breached 40 degrees Celsius in parts of the country. Meanwhile, large parts of Southern Europe, all the way from Portugal through to Greece, have been literally burning as large, uncontrolled forest fires take hold of vast tracts of land. They have continued to burn despite numerous efforts to put them out. The extensive and severe heat wave is believed to have caused at least 2,000 deaths, with about 800 in Spain alone. This is nothing less than a massive, continental-scale tragedy being played out, as Europe faces its hottest ever summer.
This is certainly not the first severe heat wave Europe has faced. Over the past few years, heat waves, record temperatures, and extensive forest fires seem to have become regular features of a European summer. But each year, the mercury goes a notch higher, while forest fires begin earlier, last longer, and cover a much larger area. There is hardly any part of Europe that has escaped the heat waves, while the last two years have also seen record temperatures in the Arctic Circle and extensive fires in the Siberian steppe.
These repeated incidents ought to have convinced even the most cynical politicians and businessmen about the fact that global warming is not just real or here, but that it is here to stay and will only increase in intensity unless dramatic and long-term steps are immediately taken to curb its human-made causes.
But even as Europe burns and singes under the heat, in the air-conditioned comfort of corporate boardrooms and government offices — almost entirely cut off from the calamitous climate crisis unfolding outside — the bosses of Europe’s big firms and government leaders are making decisions that are bound to add fuel, fossil fuels to be specific, to the fire.
Two issues, both related to fossil fuels, stand out in particular for not just being the opposite of what the current situation demands, but also for being totally contradictory to the long-standing commitments of the EU, which have only recently been reaffirmed or even strengthened.
The first is coal. For years or even decades, various EU nations have promised to rapidly phase out coal from their power generation mix and also close down the relatively few coal mines that remain operational, such as those in Germany, Poland, and France. In fact, during the COP24 climate change summit in Katowice, Poland, in 2018, when the host nation dragged its feet over a faster phasing out of coal from its power mix, it was lambasted particularly harshly by its fellow EU members, who held loftier goals for moving toward cleaner fuels to run their economies.
However, the sheen has come off many of Europe’s big claims about making its economy greener and rapidly ending its reliance on fossil fuels. In the face of the sharp rise in oil and gas prices that first gripped the global economy in the second half of 2021, most EU countries began looking for sources other than oil or gas — and they turned almost instinctively and collectively toward coal. Hence, after having dipped for years, if not decades, coal consumption in Europe registered a rise in 2021, from 386 million tons to 400 million tons.
The sheen has come off many of Europe’s big claims about making its economy greener and rapidly ending its reliance on fossil fuels.
Due to the rising cost of oil and gas, countries across Europe have postponed planned closures of coal-fired power plants. Similarly, coal mines where production had been falling have seen a fresh wave of activity and investment, and the closures of several mines across Central Europe have also been put off.
Most of these decisions were taken back in 2021, well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since then, Europe has found itself pushed even further into a corner due to its high dependence on Russian oil and gas. This is the sole reason that even nations like Germany resisted putting gas on the list of Russian goods that would attract sanctions. Now, with the Russian gas producer Gazprom itself threatening to turn off the supplies, Europe is scurrying for solutions to keep its economy powered, especially as winter approaches, when power and fuel consumption rise more than 2.5 times, mainly to heat homes and offices.
The EU’s posturing on fossil fuel addiction was exposed by a second recent stance taken by the bloc’s big economies. Last month, they opposed a faster phase-out of combustion engine cars and shift toward completely electric power-driven transportation across the EU.
After the European Commission moved a proposal to ban the sale of petrol or diesel-powered cars in the EU area from 2035 — in order to meet its target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 55 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 — several member states rejected it. The list included the three biggest economies in the EU — Germany, France, and Italy, which are also major automobile producers and have hundreds of thousands of people working in car factories.
