“Europe’s summer has been hot as hell. This is the price of global fossil fuel addiction hitting home,” warns Simon Stiell, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary.
Speaking to the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety in Brussels, Stiell appealed to lawmakers to “double down” on “Europe’s longstanding climate leadership” and speed up the transition to clean energy.
“It’s entirely in Europe’s interests to stand firm behind climate action – and to boost it: to build resilience to climate impacts – protecting global supply chains, on which all economies depend. And to slash global emissions.”
Climate action is Europe’s cheapest insurance policy
Europe’s summer of extreme heat was the hottest on record for the UK and Italy, with more countries likely to announce the same. Stiell listed just some of the costs: “We’ve seen mass evacuations. Power stations closed. And trade routes choked. Crops lost. Yields down. And food prices up – and set to rise further.”
