Europe – the Fastest Warming Continent

Fires have consumed more than one million hectares of land in the European Union this year

Corina Cristea, 12.09.2025, 13:00

Fires have consumed more than one million hectares of land in the European Union this year – the largest area in any year since official records began in 2006. As a result, more than 38 million tons of carbon dioxide have been emitted, the European Forest Fire Information System in the EU reported. The favorable conditions for these fires have arisen, say researchers, as a result of a 14% reduction in winter precipitation, while the incidence of high summer temperatures has increased by 13 percent. All as a result of global warming, scientists draw attention. Beyond material losses, the consequences go as far as a considerable number of lives lost. A report detailing the impact of extreme heat worldwide, published in August by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), found that extreme temperatures caused an estimated 489,000 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2019, 36% of which occurred in Europe. The WMO warns that countries need to act faster to adapt to climate change and limit global warming, in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement. “Extreme heat is sometimes called the silent killer, but with today’s science, data and technologies, silence is no longer an excuse. Every death from extreme heat is preventable,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett. The organization estimates that expanding heat health warning systems in just 57 countries could save almost 100,000 lives annually. It is not just a climate problem, it is a public health emergency – say experts. Studies and scientific bodies agree on the increase in the frequency of heatwave episodes in Europe – the continent that is warming the fastest in the world, according to the European observatory Copernicus. A German-Romanian university study reviewing heatwaves from 1921-2021 concludes that there is “a significant increase in the frequency of heatwaves in most regions of Europe, especially in the last three decades”. Guest on Radio Romania, Dr. Roxana Bojariu, climatologist expert at the National Meteorological Administration, spoke about the acceleration of extreme weather processes due to climate change in Romania, but the situation is no different from the one existing globally:

“The number of days with heat waves in Romania, especially in the south and extreme west of the country, is increasing year by year. And, in general, temperatures are increasing at a sustained pace and increase to a greater extent in summer, then in winter. The transitional seasons also have these trends in the regions of Romania, but the growth trends are not as pronounced as in summer. And then, we have these manifestations, heat waves have already become more frequent, more intense, of longer duration compared to previous decades, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, they are starting even earlier.”

Last year was the hottest year ever recorded on Earth, and measurements show that the 12-month period from August 2024 to July 2025 was 1.53 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels, exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold agreed as the maximum level under the Paris Agreement on combating global warming, which entered into force in 2016. The main cause of climate change – greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. The data shows that the European Union loses 6.4% of its annual agricultural production, equivalent to 28 billion euros, due to climate-related risks. 17.4 billion euros are for crop production and 10.9 billion euros for animal husbandry. Drought, frost, hail and excessive precipitation are responsible for 80% of climate-related agricultural losses across the European Union, but the main factor is drought, which generates more than half of the losses. Ideally, precipitation should fall with a certain frequency and intensity, but, unfortunately, this does not happen much – it is either absent or occurs in episodes of much higher intensity. The increase in precipitation intensity is another phenomenon directly related to global warming, emphasizes climatologist Roxana Bojariu:

“The problem is that the increased intensity of precipitation does not efficiently load the soil with water resources, because these quantities fall in a very short time and there is practically no time for them to infiltrate, a large part of it drains to the surface, even with problems related to soil erosion, for example, because this drain also takes away part of the fertile soil, so, problems.”

Meanwhile, global warming targets remain ambitious, but for now, increasingly geographically widespread, heat waves in Europe are taking up more and more space on the calendar. And the consequences are commensurate.