As a summer of European extreme heat draws to a close, politicians are looking back at the toll. Germany recordedaround 14,000 heat-related deaths, almost two-thirds in one scorching week of June alone. A Dutch bank estimated summer heat will cost the EU €180 billion in lost GDP. And in June, European farmers lostapproximately 9 million tons in grain crops.
Climate change, long a politically charged topic, has become a daily reality for people around the world. These effects and more are making it increasingly difficult to challenge what people are seeing with their own eyes.
Yet that hasn’t stopped the global populist right from trying. Richard Tice, deputy leader of the UK’s far-right Reform Party said"climate change has always happened, it always will," adding that it was arrogant to try to stop it. He encouraged the British public to enjoy the heat.
In the US, Harriet Hageman, a Republican politician and potentially Wyoming’s next senator, told far-right channel Real America’s Voice that Europe’s heatwave was business as usual. "It's called summer. Some years are hotter than others and some years are colder than others," she said. "But that's just the cyclical nature of weather."
And Tino Chrupalla, co-leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party tolda journalist in recent days that it’s been a "completely normal summer." He dismissed climate change as "hype."
