With its medieval monuments and chic cafes, Europe was once the epitome of ‘cool’ — but it’s now in the grip of severe heatwaves. Ian Williams , Professor of Applied Environmental Science at the University of Southampton, spoke with Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke about the science behind heated Europe, ways to mitigate its harms — and the dangers of overlooking ecological facts:Can you tell us about the heatwave spreading across Britain and Europe now?■ A ‘heatwave’ is technically hot weather that lasts several days. It includes both hot days and warm nights. We’re getting more heatwaves now as there are a lot of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that we’ve been putting there for a long while. That has raised the threshold or background value of our pollution.Therefore, we’re now getting heatwaves in Europe every three years — these used to happen earlier every 100 years. We’ve also got a ‘heat dome’ phenomenon going on now or a high-pressure air system above Europe. With this, you get dry soils because you might have had a prolonged period of no rain. You also get low wind and clear skies and warmer than average oceans. These meteorological conditions stack on top of the high baseline of the greenhouse gases piled up and result in the heatwaves being experienced over Europe now. As El Nino develops, these conditions will move to North America and affect them as well.
Also, Europe has become a very urbanised place with a lot of people living in cities — those locations are much hotter than rural areas. This is due to the urban ‘heat island’ effect where concrete, tarmac roads, pavements, dark roof tiles, etc., absorb and re-radiate heat — this is why we don’t have a cool night. As there’s not much green space, nothing exists to dissipate the heat and there’s nowhere for people to hide. These are a complicated series of factors which will get worse because El Nino is back.You mentioned a lack of rain — does that mean less snow?■ Absolutely. I live in Southampton which is the southernmost point of the United Kingdom and the warmest part of the country — we have not had ice or snow for a very long time. Throughout this winter, there was no frost. That phenomenon has been increasing over the last few years — with global warming, it’s just not cold enough in winter for frost to develop or snow to fall.
This is because we have very dry summers now and a lot of our water has been forced up into the sky. So, we have huge amounts of water held as water vapour in the sky as a result of increased temperatures which dried our soils. Hence, when it does rain in Europe now, it pelts down like in tropical areas. We get thick storms and constant, heavy, pouring rain — of course, our cities aren’t designed for it. So, we get flooding too. Europe’s situation reflects how everything is connected in the age of climate change. Every defendable scientific paper and organisation over the last 50 years have emphasised the link between human-driven global warming and the heat and floods seen in Europe now — although what is happening in India actually dwarfs Europe.We are in a weird situation where many of our politicians acknowledge this reality and want to do something about it — but there are others, often privately funded by the oil and gas sector, espousing climate denial and phrases like ‘Drill, baby, drill’ to put more oil and gas into the system. So, the public worldwide hears scientists saying one thing and politicians, another.
There is now politics over cooling for all — ‘to have or not to have’, what should our position on air conditioning even be?■ Speaking from the UK, we’re not really a hot country — but we’re struggling in this heat. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in parts of India where temperatures are routinely above 45ºC. It would be very reprehensible to say, ‘You can’t have air conditioning because of the climate change consequences’ because, frankly, if people don’t have some air conditioning now, they can perish.
There is an immediacy to the need for air conditioning — but we also should design our cities so we can have the best heat defences at the lowest possible cost and the smallest environmental impact. There are interesting things happening in India, like people painting their roofs white to reflect the heat away, planting and maintaining more trees, using shutters and shading, etc. These are low-cost, simple solutions that make a big difference.Why are notable politicians now suggesting air conditioning for all — but not climate action for all?■ There is complete irony there. I was interviewed on French television recently and air conditioning is the hottest topic (if you’ll pardon the pun) in France at the moment. There is an important social and environmental justice aspect here. Rich people who caused most of the emissions in the first place are demanding aircon to keep them cool but they are not necessarily prepared to pay for that to be a right for everyone else. So, there’s hypocrisy among a lot of the rich.As we keep seeing its temperature data climbing, we also keep hearing ‘Europe is not built to keep homes cool’. Isn’t it time the West acknowledges its own climate reality?■ The way I often describe what goes on in the West is that we stick our head in the sand like ostriches. We don’t recognise our own stupidity. Sadly, in Europe, you often need a massive disaster for people to wake up and act. In 2003, France had a massive heatwave. It killed 15,000 people within a few days and politicians were forced to take action — in just a few months, the French implemented national heat health action plans, put in place multi-level warning systems and heat health surveillance. They created registers of people who were vulnerable to heat and ensured much better coordination between France’s Met Office, health agencies, etc.They also started to change their cities. Paris took away traffic from the city centre and introduced more active transport — that reduces emissions in the capital, encourages people to walk, which keeps them fitter, and helps tourism. Nevertheless, it’s still not enough in France while in Britain, we just say, ‘Oh, heat is a bit of a bother, right?’ Since we treat it as an inconvenience, we haven’t actually done anything about it.
We’ve talked about it, we’ve had a climate change committee forever, they’ve made multiple recommendations to government and produced a report years ago where they highlighted how 92 out of every 100 homes in the UK will overheat unless we do something about this — but nobody’s done anything. It shows a failure to be a grown-up about the facts standing in front of you. I think people in the West have grown complacent about technology.They think somehow, science will come riding in and fix everything in a jiffy — but it won’t. It takes time and money to change a country’s infrastructure and make it ready for climate. In 1952, a massive air pollution disaster in London saw thousands killed in a few days. That became a catalyst for the public to wake up and demand action. Unless we want that again, we must stop saying, ‘The heat’s not very nice but I’m coping.’ If the West does not make changes now, we won’t be coping for much longer.Views expressed are personal