Europe’s drought is hitting all of our lives

Though not even yet at the end of the European summer, we can already see that this season has been one of the hottest and, critically, driest on record. Rainfall is near record lows in many areas and around half of Europe’s land area is in drought conditions.

Wildfires have raged across Europe over the last two months. Whether in Greece, Spain, Croatia, Germany or France, waves of wildfires have swept through our landscapes as the intense drought has reduced great forests to so much kindling. The impact of these repeated blazes can be deadly and destroy local communities, but even in the best of circumstances, we are left to deal with long-term consequences. Long after the situation is under control, repeated wildfires, which bring with them biodiversity loss and smoke pollution, can permanently unbalance an ecosystem. For economies who depend on summer tourism, the deterrent effect of these dangerous and uncontrollable wildfires can result in lasting damage as people seek safer and cooler destinations.

Like our forests, our farms are also suffering from the lack of water. Terrible harvests are expected this year as large parts of Europe’s crops have simply died of thirst. Dead grasslands are forcing farmers to feed their animals with plants they would have normally harvested. The impact on the soil is severe enough that even if a burst of rain does come, it is too dry to properly absorb it, meaning much of the water will simply run off. In a cruel twist of irony, the drought is not only causing poor harvests but also a shortage of storage space for the crops that have managed to survive, as river levels hit record lows and limit the ability of farmers to transport their grains to customers. Being unable to get food out of the farms will only drive up the costs.

Nor is it just food insecurity we have to worry about. The drought is also creating another source of energy insecurity in Europe. At a time when it seems like we are lurching from one energy crisis to another, as conflict disrupts global flows of fossil fuels and exposes our reliance on imports, the lack of water is hitting us from yet another angle. This time it is nuclear power plants, which rely on the constant availability of cooler water in order to manage their internal temperatures, which are being forced to scale down production or shut off altogether. We had a preview of this in 2022, when a part of France’s nuclear fleet was forced offline, but now the scale is wider. France is impacted again (with up to a fifth of capacity out of action at times) but so are Hungary and Romania, which have also been forced to cut output. In Romania, even detonating rocks to redirect water flows was still not enough to prevent its nuclear plant being temporarily shut down, and in Hungary barges are being sunk to create emergency dams to maintain water supply. Budapest is now reconsidering whether plans to expand their nuclear plant are still viable in a future of recurring droughts.

Beyond these material issues, Europe also faces a cultural cost. The Thames, the Rhine, the Seine, the Danube, the Dnieper – Europe’s centres have long been built along and around the major rivers that run through the continent. They have shaped our greatest cities, determined the flow of trade and economic wealth, influenced borders and given life to great landscapes. One of the proposed themes of the upcoming redesign of the euro banknotes is ‘rivers and birds’, recognising their influence and their inherently continental nature. We cannot separate the Europe that exists today from the rivers that have shaped our countries. To see these landmarks dry up to nothing but sand and clay should be recognised as a true loss that will have rippling effects across not just our economies, but also the cultural and social life of Europe. For now the water will return as the seasons shift, but for how much longer can we continue down this path before the changes become irreversible?

None of this is an alarm sound or a ‘wake up call’ for some future disaster – it is the disaster itself. Europe is the fastest warming continent on Earth and the reality of climate change is hitting us hard. As with all human civilisation, water is the lifeblood of Europe’s economy, society and even identity. If Europe is to be deprived of the normal river flows and rains that we have been used to for centuries, it will fundamentally reshape our continent, mostly in ways that will make life much harder for our future selves and for generations to come.

For those who use their platforms to announce their fear that immigration into Europe is changing the world we live in, the continued and worsening impact of climate change will do so much more. A Europe in a future planet whose seasons, weather patterns and natural landscapes have been fundamentally altered by climate change will simply not be the Europe we know today. That so few of the politicians who espouse anti-migrant views are committed to net zero (indeed it is mostly the opposite), shows how little our leaders understand about climate change and what a warming world and a warming continent actually mean.

Climate change is a critical danger to Europe. If the ‘European way of life’ is to mean anything, it must be rooted in the natural world that we live in and such a major threat to the latter must therefore be a threat to the former. Certainly deciding that we can take it slow on decarbonisation and the energy transition can no longer seen as credible or serious. And if others around the world won’t match us in pursuing these goals, then we must view these actions for what they are: not normal economic competition, but diplomatic and political hostility.