Even passing 1.5C of global warming temporarily would trigger a “significant” risk of Amazon forest “dieback”, says a new study.
Dieback would see large numbers of trees die, shifting the lush rainforest into a dry savannah.
The research, published in Nature Climate Change, assesses the impact of “overshooting” the aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement on the Amazon and Siberian forests.
Overshoot would see warming surpass 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in the coming decades, before being brought back down before 2100 through large-scale carbon dioxide removal.
Using hundreds of climate-model simulations, the authors assess the influence of the “sensitivity” of the climate – a measure of the planet’s temperature response to a given increase in atmospheric CO2.
Across all simulations where global warming in 2100 surpasses 1.5C, 37% show “some amount of dieback”, the study says.
However, the risk increases further in the long term, with “55% of simulations exhibiting dieback by 2300”.
One author tells Carbon Brief that the study highlights that overshooting 1.5C leaves forest ecosystems “exposed to more risk than [they] need to be”.
The findings show that “we can’t afford complacency”, he warns.
Warming pathways
As the planet warms, there is an increasing risk that parts of the Earth system will cross “tipping points” – critical thresholds that, if exceeded, could push a system into an entirely new state.
For example, a seminal 2022 study warned that five tipping elements – including the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet and abrupt permafrost thaw – are already within reach, while others are becoming increasingly more likely as temperatures rise.
One way to limit warming to 1.5C by the end of the century involves initially overshooting the threshold. However, research published last year warns that the longer the 1.5C threshold is breached – and the higher the peak temperature – the greater the risk of crossing tipping points.
The new study uses modelling to investigate the risks of overshoot for the Amazon and Siberian forests.
The paper considers three illustrative mitigation pathways taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) mitigation report from its sixth assessment cycle, which was published in 2022.
Gregory Munday is an applied scientist at the UK Met Office Hadley Centre and lead author on the study. He tells Carbon brief that the authors selected “optimistic” pathways that “each have different relationships to the Paris Agreement goals”.
For each scenario, the authors assess a range of different climate sensitivities – a measure of the planet’s temperature response to a given increase in atmospheric CO2. The average outcome of each pathway is:
- The “renewables” scenario shows a future with reduced emissions and a heavy reliance on renewable energy, which keeps warming below 1.5C by 2100.
- The “negative emissions” pathway shows a world in which warming initially overshoots the 1.5C threshold, but extensive use of carbon removal sees warming drop back below 1.5C before 2100.
- The “gradual strengthening” pathway illustrates a strengthening of climate policies implemented in 2020, with rapid reductions mid-century and a reliance on net-negative emissions by the end of this century. This pathway sees global average temperatures reach 1.8C by 2100.
The authors run the emissions pathways through a simple climate “emulator” model, which calculates the global temperatures associated with each emission pathway.
The charts below show cumulative CO2 emissions (left), atmospheric CO2 concentration (middle) and changes in global average surface temperature compared to the pre-industrial level (right), for the renewables (green), negative emissions (purple) and gradual strengthening (yellow) pathways until the year 2300.
The authors then use a different modelling framework to project the impacts of each emissions scenario.
Study author Dr Chris Jones leads the UK Met Office Hadley Centre’s research into vegetation and carbon cycle modelling and their interactions with climate. He tells Carbon Brief that the new study is the first application of this modelling framework, which he describes as a “rapid response tool”.
He says the tool was developed to “rapidly look at a range of climate outcomes, both global and local, for new scenarios”, adding that it provides a “pretty good approximation” of what traditional global climate models would do.
Munday adds that the framework is able to produce results within days or weeks, rather than taking “months and months”.
Finally, the authors use land surface model JULES to assess forest health under the different scenarios. Overall, the authors produce 918 simulations each of Amazon and Siberian forest health.
Forest health
The authors assess forest health using two metrics. The first is the forest growth metric “net primary productivity”, a measure of the rate that energy is stored as biomass by plants, which can indicate forest productivity. The second metric, forest cover, is a way of measuring the forest’s long-term response.
The models show that rising CO2 levels causes net primary productivity to increase, due to the CO2 fertilisation effect, driving more rapid forest growth. Conversely, many of the impacts of climate change, such as increased heat and changes to rainfall patterns, can be detrimental to forests, damaging or killing trees.
To identify the impacts of overshooting 1.5C on the Amazon and Siberian forests, the authors compare the “renewables” and “negative emissions” pathways. Both of these scenarios reach a similar global average temperature by the year 2100, but the former does so without overshoot, while the latter overshoots 1.5C before temperatures come back down.
The maps below show the difference in net primary productivity in the Amazon (left) and Siberian forests (right) between the two scenarios in the year 2100. Brown shading indicates that net primary productivity was higher in the non-overshoot scenario, while blue indicates that it was higher in the overshoot scenario.
The maps show that “large areas of both Amazonian and Siberian forest show reduced net primary productivity” by 2100 due to overshoot, compared to a scenario with no overshoot, the paper says.
‘High-risk zones’
From the three pathways, the authors generate 918 simulations of future climate and corresponding Amazon forest health.
The authors use these results to identify which future temperature and rainfall conditions result in net forest “dieback”. This is when large numbers of trees die, shifting the rainforest into a dry savannah.
The plots below show which simulations result in Amazon dieback by the year 2100 (left) and 2300 (right), for different amounts of rainfall and temperature levels in the year 2100. Each graph is divided into four sections – hot and wet (top right), hot and dry (bottom right), cold and wet (top right) and cold and dry (bottom right). These sections are based on average regional temperature and rainfall in the year 2100.
Coloured dots indicate scenarios that see forest dieback. These are coloured by pathway, for renewables (green), negative emissions (purple) and gradual strengthening (yellow). Grey dots indicate scenarios without Amazon dieback. The red lines indicate “high-risk climatic zones”, above which there is “a significant risk of dieback”.
The study finds that most Amazon dieback scenarios happen in hot, dry conditions, the authors note.
Across all simulations where warming in 2100 is above 1.5C, 37% show “some amount of dieback” the study says. However, in these model runs, the risk increases further in the long term, the study notes, with “55% of simulations exhibiting dieback by 2300”.
Prof Nico Wunderling is a professor of computational Earth system science at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and was not involved in the new research. He tells Carbon Brief it is significant that, according to this study, the Amazon will face impacts from climate change below the tipping point threshold of 2-6C, as assessed in the landmark 2022 tipping points paper.
The authors also carry out this analysis for Siberian forests. Instead of a drop in tree cover, they find a change in the composition of trees. Munday tells Carbon Brief that the vegetation shifts “from grassy surface types to lots more trees and shrubs” in a process called “woody encroachment”.
Woody encroachment can have significant negative impacts on terrestrial carbon sequestration, the hydrological cycle and local biodiversity.
“The Siberian forest is probably committed to a long-term, and possibly substantial, expansion of tree cover,” the authors write.
High-risk scenarios
The greatest uncertainty in this study comes from the spread of climate sensitivities, Munday tells Carbon Brief.
He elaborates:
“This means that although we simulate the impacts from extremely optimistic mitigation scenarios, there is a chance that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is much higher than we expect, and so, small but significant risks of short- and long-term forest ecosystem impacts exist in spite of the choice of these strong-mitigation scenarios.”
In other words, if climate sensitivity is higher than expected, forests could face harmful impacts even under low emissions scenarios.
Dr David McKay – a lecturer in geography, climate change and society at the University of Sussex – is the lead author of the 2022 study. He tells Carbon Brief that the new paper “shows the value in focusing not just on model averages, but also exploring a wide range of possible futures to capture potential ‘low probability, high impact’ outcomes”. He adds:
“[The study shows] how negative emissions to reduce warming might help restabilise these forests in future if we do overshoot 1.5C, but as such large-scale CO2 removal remains hypothetical, we shouldn’t assume we can rely on this in practice.”
However, McKay also notes some uncertainties in the models used. Mckay tells Carbon Brief that the vegetation model used in this study doesn’t include fire and “has some limitations around soil moisture stress and vegetation in the tundra”. These are “likely important for resolving potential tipping points in these biomes”.
Therefore, he adds, the study “doesn’t show how regional tipping points could potentially further amplify and lock-in these future forest shifts, even with negative emissions”.
Dr David Lapola is researcher at the University of Campinas in Brazil and was not involved in the study. He also warns that vegetation models provide a “poor representation of how CO2 may affect these forests directly”. Lapola argues that scientists must “collect field data to make any new advancement with models”.
Nevertheless, Lapola tells Carbon Brief that studies such as this will be “extremely useful” for the IPCC’s upcoming seventh assessment cycle, which will include a dedicated chapter on tipping points and other “low-likelihood high impact events” for the first time.
Study author Jones tells Carbon Brief that overshooting 1.5C leaves forest ecosystems “exposed to more risk than [they] need to be”. The findings show that “we can’t afford complacency”, he warns.
The post ‘Significant’ risk of Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5C appeared first on Carbon Brief.
‘Significant’ risk of Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5C
Climate Change
China Briefing 28 May 2026: Deadly rains | China pushes back | Examining China’s carbon intensity metric
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Several dead as record rainfall hit several provinces
DEADLY DOWNPOUR: Multiple rounds of heavy rainfall have hit central and eastern China, with Agence France-Presse reporting that at least 25 people were killed in the first round, which affected provinces including Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan and Hubei. Shortly afterwards, nine people died in south-western Chongqing province, reported finance news outlet Caixin, after receiving “nearly 300mm of rain in just two hours, a deluge local residents described as the worst in more than 60 years”. The government has dedicated 280m yuan ($41m) to support affected provinces, reported state news agency Xinhua. The Communist party-backed newspaper China Youth Daily reported that more than 20 provinces have been affected so far, with rains expected to continue throughout June.
CLIMATE CONTRIBUTION: National rainfall over 11-23 May was 46% higher than the seasonal norm, said Xinhua. Nearly 500 weather stations nationwide have logged record rainfall levels, according to state-sponsored newspaper Guangming Daily. The rains were described as “quite unusual”, according to Xinhua, with the National Climate Centre’s chief forecaster Gao Hui telling the agency that the heavy rains were caused by a combination of factors. These included a convergence of several climate systems carrying in strong flows of moisture from nearby marine regions, as well as “rapid global warming, compounded by a fast-developing El Niño” increasing the atmosphere’s moisture content.
The EU ‘overcapacity’ debate
‘CONCERNS’ REGISTERED: The EU will debate proposals in June to “step up efforts” to reduce economic reliance on China and protect its industries, including “safeguard investigations” for at-risk sectors and an “overcapacity instrument”, reported Politico. Finance news outlet Yicai said China in turn has registered its “concerns” with the World Trade Organization over the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), which includes local content requirements for industries including clean-energy technologies.
PATIENCE ‘WEARING THIN’: A report by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post cited “some observers” as saying a trade war characterised by the EU “clos[ing] its market down to Chinese imports” may be the “only” way in which the EU can get China to fully engage with its concerns. A China Daily editorial states that China’s “patience” over the EU’s “politicisation and over-securitisation of trade and economic issues” is “wearing thin”. An editorial in the state-supporting Global Times says “erecting higher trade barriers” against Chinese cleantech is “clearly unwise”, given the Iran conflict, adding: “China will never sit idly by while the EU unreasonably suppresses Chinese companies.”
MISSING AGREEMENTS: Meanwhile, Bloomberg covered US president Donald Trump’s claims that his counterpart Xi Jinping “likes the idea of buying more US oil”, following Trump’s state visit to China. [None of the Chinese government readouts or press briefings covering trade outcomes have mentioned any energy agreements so far.] Similarly, the “Kremlin said…a general understanding” had been reached on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline following Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to China, according to Reuters, but that there was “no mention of any oil and gas deals among documents signed” during his meeting with Xi. A joint statement published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said China and Russia will “deepen” cooperation around oil and gas, coal, nuclear and renewable energy, adding that they will “strengthen cooperation in addressing climate change”.
Coal-power generation rose in April
‘INFLEXIBLE’ COAL: Thermal power generation in China “grew for a fourth straight month in April”, rising 3.1% year-on-year in the face of reduced wind and nuclear generation, reported Bloomberg. “Unfavorable weather” was not the only reason for weaker clean-energy generation, wrote Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta on Bluesky, with “grid congestion due to inflexible operation of coal plants and transmission lines” also a factor. Separately, research by Global Energy Monitor found that Chinese coal-plant developers “requested approval for 51 gigawatts (GW)” of new capacity in January-March 2026, reported Bloomberg.
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SOLAR SLOWDOWN: Total power demand grew 6% year-on-year in April, according to Xinhua. Total capacity rose 14% by the end of April, reported energy news outlet International Energy Net, with China’s total solar-power capacity now exceeding 1,250 gigawatts (GW) and wind reaching 661GW, while thermal capacity rose 7% to 1,556GW. However, the growth rate of new solar installations continued to fall for a “fourth straight month”, said Bloomberg, with 9.5GW added in April 2026 compared to 45.2GW the year before.
POLICY EXPANDS: Meanwhile, the government has expanded its renewable power “direct connection” policy to allow clean-energy generators to supply multiple users directly “through dedicated [power] lines”, rather than just one consumer, reported finance news outlet Caixin. It cited a government official saying the policy is “intended to support cleaner energy use in industrial parks…and other large energy-consuming facilities”, which comprise more than two-thirds of total energy demand. Economic news outlet Jiemian quotes an expert saying the policy enables both “lower electricity prices” and “higher utilisation rates” for renewables, “reducing curtailment rates”.
More China news
- ‘SOLIDARITY AND RESOLVE’: China voted in favour of a UN general assembly resolution to back the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) landmark 2025 opinion on states’ legal obligations to tackle climate change. The Chinese embassy to Vanuatu said on Facebook this displayed its “solidarity and collective resolve”.
- BOND DISCLOSURE: According to a disclosure report by China’s finance ministry, the country raised 6bn yuan in “green sovereign bonds” in 2025, said finance news outlet EastMoney ($884m), of which 700m ($103m) was spent on clean-energy retrofitting.
- WAR ON SAND: The central government has pledged to “improve” and expand its ecological compensation mechanism, including to now provide compensation for building solar farms in desertified areas, said power news outlet BJX News.
- SPACE-BASED SOLAR: Chinese scientists have begun “initial experiments” in a project to “collect [solar] energy in orbit and beam it wirelessly to Earth”, said PV Magazine.
- MINERAL STRATEGY: China has pledged to “accelerate the construction of strategic mineral-reserve sites”, reported Reuters. It will also work with the US on “reasonable” concerns around its rare-earth export controls, Reuters also reported.
Captured
Hydrogen in China continues to be mostly produced from coal, according to a National Energy Administration report. A new Carbon Brief article explored how a series of new policies in China could help scale hydrogen, particularly “green” hydrogen made with renewable power.
Spotlight
China’s new carbon metric leaves Germany-sized gap in its emissions
A major change in the way that China measures its core climate goal has effectively halved the growth in the country’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the past five years.
The revised measure of “carbon intensity” implies that China’s emissions have only gone up by 7% from 2020-2025, just half of the 14% rise indicated by previous official statistics.
This spotlight is an excerpt of an analysis explaining how the metric appears to have shifted and its implications for China’s climate goals. The full article can be found on the Carbon Brief website.
Germany-sized gap
Reducing carbon intensity – CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – has been China’s key climate commitment since the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009.
Neither China’s international climate pledges nor other official documents have ever set out a definition of carbon intensity.
However, until this year, it was possible to closely reproduce the reported numbers, based on a straightforward interpretation of what carbon intensity means – combining official GDP data with estimates of emissions from the use of fossil fuels.
Now, the types of emissions that are included in the carbon-intensity metric have changed.
The previous carbon-intensity measure apparently included emissions from the use of fossil fuels to generate energy and as chemical feedstocks, so-called “non-energy uses”. It did not include non-fossil fuel CO2 emissions from industrial processes, such as the production of cement.
Based on reported progress against this old scope, China’s carbon intensity had fallen by 12.4% from 2020-2025, well short of its 18% target under the 14th five-year plan.
Yet the 15th five-year plan reported that China had cut its carbon intensity by 17.7% over the same period, indicating a major shift in which types of emissions are included.
A footnote in China’s latest statistical communique indicates that carbon intensity now includes industrial process emissions and excludes non-energy uses of fossil fuels.
The shift has implications for estimates of the country’s emissions.
China’s total emissions were 11.2bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) in 2020. Based on the original methodology, its fossil-fuel CO2 emissions had grown 14% by 2024, an increase of 1,430m tonnes (MtCO2).
In contrast, the newly reported carbon-intensity figures imply that China’s CO2 emissions only grew by 7% between 2020 and 2025, up just 690MtCO2.
The gap between these figures amounts to 730MtCO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of Germany or South Korea.
Decoding the new methodology
The methodology change could have significant implications, making it important to understand how it is being calculated.
The new scope includes industrial-process emissions. One of the largest sources of these emissions, the cement industry, has been contracting, helping explain the improvement to carbon intensity under the new scope.
In addition, the new scope excludes non-energy use of fossil fuels – largely relating to the chemicals industry – which have seen rapid growth in the past five years.
One way to make the numbers add up would be to assume that the amount of carbon embedded in chemical-industry products has increased by the equivalent of 500MtCO2.
However, the reported output of major chemical-industry products cannot account for this level of embedded carbon.
Neither the change in scope of the carbon-intensity calculation, nor the change in the amount of carbon retained in products, can explain the size of the revision in the newly reported numbers. There must be another explanation.
Either the new scope broadly aligns with the explanation outlined above, but also excludes a subset of the CO2 emissions. Or the scope does not exclude any of the CO2, but there are gaps in the monitoring of some energy or industrial-process emissions.
Either explanation would mean China is not accounting for some of its CO2 emissions.
Implications for China’s targets
This change has the effect of weakening China’s climate targets and introducing more uncertainty into tracking progress.
The new numbers means it will require less effort to hit the 2030 carbon-intensity target in its Paris pledge. This target can now be met even if emissions rise, whereas the previous metric would have required a reduction.
It will also require less effort to hit the carbon-intensity target in China’s 15th five-year plan.
In addition, China would be able to officially meet its target to peak emissions by 2030, even if its overall CO2 emissions do not actually peak. The change could also affect delivery of China’s targets to cut emissions by 2035.
While China may use any definition it wants for carbon intensity under the UN climate framework, retrospective changes or inconsistent accounting could erode the value of its commitments.
Moreover, it will ultimately have to close any gaps in its emissions data and reporting, under the transparency rules of the Paris Agreement.
This spotlight is adapted from an article by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta for Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
MINING ACCIDENT: A column in Bloomberg argued that “continuing to veer…toward cleaner [energy] development” could avoid coal-mine accidents such as the one that claimed 82 lives in Shanxi province.
INDONESIAN NICKEL: The European Guanxi Podcast recorded a discussion with Ember’s Dr Muyi Yang about the role China plays in Indonesia’s coal-reliant nickel industry.
INDUSTRIAL HURDLES: A new article in Yicai investigated the reasons why companies are holding back on relocating to zero-carbon industrial parks.
NEGATIVE PRICES: The Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily published a widely-read article on how the emergence of “negative electricity prices” signals a need for a more “coordinated” buildout of clean energy.
163
In billion tonnes, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that China could avoid between 2025-2060 by transitioning to clean energy, according to a new study published by several leading academic institutions in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. Scientists estimate that the remaining global budget for keeping temperatures below 1.5C is 130bn tonnes of CO2.
New science
- Population exposure to heatwave-drought events “increased markedly” across China during between 1961-90 and 1991-2020, driven by a combination of population growth and more frequent heatwave-drought events | Atmospheric Research
- Fossil-fired power generation accounts for three-quarters of China’s total water consumption for energy production | Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change
Recently published on WeChat
China Briefing is written by Anika Patel, with contributions from Lekai Liu, and edited by Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 28 May 2026: Deadly rains | China pushes back | Examining China’s carbon intensity metric appeared first on Carbon Brief.
A new book examines “renewable portfolio standard” laws and the ways utilities drove the bus.
Not long ago, the rise of U.S. renewable energy was largely tied to state policies that required or encouraged utilities to meet benchmarks for obtaining wind and solar power.
How Utility Companies and States Shaped America’s Clean Energy Transition
Europe has been hit by a searing heatwave, which has shattered temperature records across France, Spain and the UK.
In London, for example, the mercury hit a record high for May of 35.1C at Kew Gardens on Tuesday 26 May, breaking the former record-high May temperature by more than 2C.
Multiple people have died as a result of the high temperatures, including 14 people across the UK and France who drowned.
The heatwave was driven by a “heat dome”, in which warm air moving up from northern Africa has become trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe.
Experts have been quick to point out the link between extreme heat and global warming, with one saying it was “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that climate change was making such events “more likely and more severe”.
In this article, Carbon Brief examines the impacts of the heatwave and the role of climate change.
- What is happening with the May heatwave in Europe?
- What is driving the record-shattering heat?
- What are the impacts of the extreme heat?
- How has the media responded?
What is happening with the May heatwave in Europe?
Europe has been hit by “mind-bogglingly crazy” temperature records in May, according to the Financial Times, quoting Peter Thorne, director of the ICARUS Climate Research Centre at Maynooth University in Ireland.
In London, on Tuesday 26 May, temperatures hit a record high for May of 35.1C at Kew Gardens – breaking the previous record of 34.8C, set just the day before.
This was more than 2C above the previous May temperature high of 32.8C recorded in 1922 and again in 1944, reported the Times.
The Associated Press added that the UK capital also recorded a rare “tropical night”, when temperatures did not fall below 20C overnight.
The Daily Telegraph reported that Wales and Northern Ireland also saw record-high temperatures, of 27.4C in Cardiff and 23.4C in Armagh, on Sunday.
As with the UK record, these were quickly surpassed. BBC News reported that temperatures hit 32.9C in Bute Park, Cardiff and 24.5C in Thomastown, County Fermanagh, on Tuesday.
BBC News quoted a spokesperson from the Met Office, who said:
“This heat would be exceptional in the UK even in mid-summer, let alone in May.”
The broadcaster added that the average temperature in the UK at the end of May is usually 14-20C.
The Associated Press reported that temperature records have also fallen across Europe.
This includes in France, where temperatures reached 36C on Monday in the country’s south-west and remained above 20C at night across much of the country. The newspaper Libération declared that “it has never been so hot, so early, in France”.
The Guardian reported that the weather agency Météo France said the heatwave could last through the week and bring temperatures as high as 39C in some areas in the country.
As well as the UK and France, other nations have been seeing temperatures soar. France24 reported that temperatures in Spain were expected to reach 38C, with Italy also facing high temperatures.
The Irish Times reported that the May high-temperature record was broken twice in Ireland on the same day, with 29.7C recorded in Carlow and then 30.5C at Shannon Airport on Tuesday.
Le Monde explained that a “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa is behind the high temperatures across Europe. (See: What is driving the record-breaking heat?)
The Financial Times quoted ICARUS’s Thorne saying that the records being set in Europe, “particularly in the UK and France, are mind-bogglingly crazy”. He added:
“We have more than 100 years of observational records. To break the all-time May record by more than 2C…is hard to comprehend.”
What is driving the record-shattering heat?
The immediate driver of the extreme heat seen over Europe this week is a “heat dome”, according to Politico.
The outlet explained that the phenomenon is driven by “warm air moving up from northern Africa [that] has become trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe”. It added:
“The effect is similar to that of a lid on a pot, with warm air forced downward and baking affected regions with prolonged, blistering heat.”
Spain’s El Correo explained that the phenomenon is “not a simple heatwave”, adding that such “high-pressure systems trapped over Europe are not usually seen before summer”.
However, many publications have linked the severity of the extreme heat to climate change. The Associated Press quoted ICARUS’s Thorne, who said:
“We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that heatwave events such as this have been made more likely and more severe due to climate change arising from our emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.”
The Guardian quoted Dr Chloe Brimicombe, a researcher at the University of Oxford, who said:
“The record-breaking heat is a reminder of how climate change is impacting our lives in the UK. It highlights the urgency of recent calls for heat adaptation.”
France’s Le Figaro described the event as an “unequivocal sign of global warming”.
The Independent reported that the heatwave “has the fingerprints of climate change all over it”. Other outlets, including Inside Climate News and Scientific American, also covered the links between extreme heat and climate change.
BBC News noted that over the last 30 years, Europe has been warming by 0.56C per decade – more than twice the global average.
The outlet quoted Prof Erich Fischer, professor at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who compared the record-breaking temperatures to setting a new record in sports.
He explained that “if someone beats a world record in high jump, you would expect them to beat it by one centimetre and not suddenly by 20, 30 centimetres”. Similarly, he said that in the case of temperature, you would expect new records to be broken by a fraction of a degree, rather than 2 or 3C.
However, the broadcaster explained that “when a relatively rare weather system, such as this week’s heat dome, comes around in a warming climate, the margin of record can be huge”.
Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, called the heatwave a “brutal reminder of the cost of global warming”, according to Politico.
The Guardian also quotes Stiell, who said:
“The science is clear that human-induced climate change is making these heatwaves more frequent and extreme”.
What are the impacts of the extreme heat?
The heatwave has already been linked to multiple deaths.
This included seven people in France, five of whom died by drowning and two who suffered heat-related deaths while competing in sporting events, said the Guardian.
Separately, the Guardian reported that at least nine people have died in the UK from “water-related incidents” during the heatwave.
France24 reported that “restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy” and that “farmers reported accelerated harvests as temperatures went beyond 30C across [south-west France]”.
The Guardian reported that tennis players at the French Open were “forced to adjust their games while trying to find their best level through obvious discomfort”, amid 33C temperatures in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, on Monday.
CNN added that, in the UK, “a wildfire broke out near Arthur’s Seat, a hill in Edinburgh, Scotland, and hundreds of properties in south-east England were left without water as demand spiked”.
BBC News reported on a warning from a chief nurse that hospitals in the south-west of England were busier than usual amid the heatwave.
BBC News reported that the UK saw a surge in emergency calls on Tuesday. The Daily Telegraph added that “Britain’s roads started melting and rail commuters were left stranded for hours”.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reported on a warning from climate campaigners that the government “urgently” needs to start installing air conditioning units in schools and care homes.
The extreme heat has also affected Europe’s renewable energy generation. Bloomberg said that “the heat dome has blocked clouds and fueled booming solar generation”, but added that “by clearing clouds and calming the atmosphere, the heat dome has had the opposite effect on wind speeds”.
How has the media responded?
The unseasonably high temperatures have caught the attention of news outlets in the UK, France and other affected nations.
Often, news stories were accompanied by photos of people relaxing at the beach, eating ice cream and swimming in the sea.
Such images of “fun in the sun” have often drawn criticism from climate researchers for “misrepresenting” the risks of heatwaves.
This choice of imagery – and the way right-leaning newspapers in the UK tend to focus on the positive aspects of hot weather – was highlighted by journalist and media critic Mic Wright in a Substack post. He wrote:
“Most British newspapers write about extremely hot weather with the tone of a frog in a boiling pot pretending it’s a jacuzzi.”
Despite blanket news coverage of the record heat in media outlets across western Europe, there has been relatively little commentary from their opinion pages.
No major UK newspapers have published editorials about the heat and there has been no space dedicated to it in the comment sections of the largest French and Spanish newspapers.
One exception in UK media was the Daily Mail’s climate-sceptic columnist Richard Littlejohn writing an article mocking heat-safety measures and warnings issued by the Met Office and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
In contrast, the Guardian published an article by Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, warning of the dangers facing the UK as extreme heat becomes “the norm”. He wrote:
“We need, then, to face the fact that life in the 2050s is going to be very different from today, and act now. The sooner we recognise this and begin – as a nation – to prepare and adapt accordingly, the better we will be able to meet these enormous challenges to our everyday lives.”
Oliver Duff, editor-in-chief of the i newspaper, wrote that the UK is “emotionally underprepared”, as a nation, for the heat:
“Worries about climate change are forgotten in the giddy determination to enjoy our brief, unreliable summers, whichever month of the year they deign to visit.”
Writing in the Independent, journalist Kat Brown reflected on the Climate Change Committee’s recent advice to the UK government on adapting to climate change. She stressed the need to “take heatwaves seriously”.
James Wallace, chief executive of the charity River Action, was given a guest column in the Daily Express in which he wrote: “As the nation swelters in record-breaking temperatures, England is sleepwalking into a water crisis.”
In reference to water shortages and increasingly extreme weather, Wallace also emphasised that “this is climate breakdown in real time”.
The post Media reaction: UK and Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May heat and climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Media reaction: UK and Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May heat and climate change
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