{"id":518665,"date":"2026-06-26T00:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/518665\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T00:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:59:10","slug":"savage-european-heatwave-due-to-climate-change-says-un-expert-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/518665\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Savage\u2019 European heatwave due to climate change, says UN expert \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

United Nations<\/a> (UN) climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell has said the heatwave<\/a> across Europe this week was due to climate change<\/a> and there would be worse to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope\u2019s savage heatwave has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it \u2013 it\u2019s the latest price to pay for fossil fuel pollution baking our planet. Schools closing, the vulnerable dying, economies sweating: this is what the climate crisis looks like in practice and it\u2019s just getting started,\u201d he said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil humanity stops burning colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas, extreme heat will keep getting worse, and other climate impacts \u2013 from mega-droughts, floods, wildfires and storms \u2013 will keep hammering every economy and population harder each year.\u201d<\/p>\n

UN secretary general Ant\u00f3nio Guterres<\/a> warned this week that the world \u201ccannot outrun climate change. Its impacts are already here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Ireland is not under the heat dome, or area of high pressure trapping heat over continental Europe, temperatures reached a high of 32.1 degrees in Athenry, Co Galway<\/a>, on Thursday.<\/p>\n

There had been predictions that a new heat record could be set to beat the 33.3 degrees recorded in Co Kilkenny in 1887. In Northern Ireland<\/a>, a high of 30.8 degrees was recorded in Castlederg in Co Tyrone. <\/p>\n

A man plays guitar at Greystones beach during heatwave. Video: Natalia Campos <\/p>\n

The heatwave that has consumed much of western Europe has pushed temperatures well above 35 degrees for more than 100 million people and triggered weather warnings in more than 20 countries. The rising death toll includes 212 fatalities over four days linked to the heatwave in Spain alone.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0France faces surge of heat-related health emergencies as temperatures exceed 40 degreesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Europe is particularly affected because it is the fastest-warming continent, according to the European Union\u2019s Copernicus climate change monitoring service, warming at more than twice the global average. It has warned of \u201cincreasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves\u201d in Europe<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Europe\u2019s climate continues to warm, heatwaves are projected to occur earlier and later in the year beyond summer,\u201d according to Copernicus.<\/p>\n

Peter Thorne, director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, said this is in part due to climate change\u2019s impact on the Arctic region. <\/p>\n

With ice caps \u201cmelting rapidly\u201d, the reflective surface of the northernmost part of the planet is disappearing, he said, and being replaced with land and sea that absorbs radiation more easily. This extreme weather \u201cis hugely concerning\u201d for Thorne. <\/p>\n

\u201cUndoubtedly, this is proof of human-induced climate change at work. This is our new reality and it\u2019s not going anywhere,\u201d he said. \u201cThe worst thing is, it\u2019s not getting any better than this,\u201d he added, noting heatwaves are expected to occur \u201cwith increasing frequency\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cSure, we\u2019re going to get nice cool weather at some point in the weekend, but the heatwave is going to move east, impacting Germany, Poland, the Baltics and even the Nordics before this is done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"AA woman walks with an umbrella during a hot day in downtown Zagreb, Croatia, on Thursday. Photograph: Antonio Bat\/EPA <\/p>\n

Dr Michael Hynes, an environmental sociologist at the University of Galway, said people worldwide are experiencing \u201cclimate fatigue\u201d, or a fall-off in interest in the climate crisis, because the issue feels so abstract, leading people to feel helpless. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels completely out of our grasp,\u201d he said. \u201cThe world isn\u2019t going to end, but it\u2019s going to change \u2013 it\u2019s changing right in front of our eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Counties Cork, Kerry and Waterford have been placed under status orange thunderstorm warnings by Met \u00c9ireann<\/a>, which list flooding, lightning damage and \u201cvery gusty winds\u201d as potential impacts. A status yellow heat warning initially due to expire on Friday morning has been extended to Saturday.<\/p>\n

Met \u00c9ireann meteorologist Holly O\u2019Neill said no part of the country has reached the minimum \u201cfive or more consecutive summer days above 25 degrees\u201d observed at a Met \u00c9ireann station to officially register a heatwave. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe unusually warm weather this week is, in part, a result of heatwave conditions over in Europe, with a plume of warm air being moved in from the Continent that\u2019s causing our temperatures to soar as well,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cClimate projections all agree that this heating will continue well into the future and we can expect to see more of these extreme heat events happening more frequently,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United Nations (UN) climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell has said the heatwave across Europe this week was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[68227,2885,84528,4500,42,1191,43,2443,40,38,41,39,23242,18335],"class_list":["post-518665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-action-committee","tag-galway","tag-headlines","tag-met-eireann","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-nations-un","tag-weather-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}