Can Europe’s historic cities survive a warming climate?
This week was London Climate Action Week, an international event that brought researchers, leaders and activists to the British capital to discuss climate change. As
This week was London Climate Action Week, an international event that brought researchers, leaders and activists to the British capital to discuss climate change. As delegates gathered in the city, they experienced the nature of the problem first-hand: temperatures in parts of the United Kingdom topped 36 degrees Celsius (97F), and London itself sweltered. The city clearly struggled to cope, as exemplified by an event scheduled to discuss extreme heat being cancelled because of the extreme heat. A heatwave has engulfed Europe. The physical phenomenon is well understood. The jet stream dips to the west, allowing hot air from North Africa to make its way over the continent. An area of high pressure then strengthens, staying in place for days, creating a dome that traps hot air and suppresses cloud formation. Temperatures increase. Europe is turning into an oven. And the fact that it is consistently breaking records is a strong indication that the long-term warming of Europe —the continent that is warming the fastest— is having an effect. Such weather patterns have happened before, of course, but they are now becoming deeper and more frequent. They are no longer occasional, extreme events, but a new normality. And they are also revealing the structural inadequacy of Europe’s built environment: not insulated enough to keep the heat out, nor uniformly air-conditioned enough to keep it cool. This problem is particularly evident in places like Paris or London, which are currently at the centre of this latest extreme and which were once notorious for their long winters and grey skies rather than for their heatwaves. Historically, the local climate allowed developers to opt for designs that ignore the challenges of warm, sunny climates—a neglect that now risks becoming negligence. Things will get worse.
As average temperatures continue to rise, the number of days of extreme heat will increase. Even southern European cities, once comfortable with the warm, benign Mediterranean climate, will struggle. The stakes are high. The heatwave of 2003 killed around 70,000 people. Efforts to adapt followed, but nearly two decades later, the summer of 2022 saw over 60,000 heat-induced deaths, suggesting that those efforts were insufficient. This year’s heatwave may be worse still. European cities are not ready. What does this mean for decision-makers? The UK Climate Change Committee has summarised the problem pithily: “The UK was built for a climate that no longer exists”. This is true for most of Europe. A new urbanism is needed. To be fair, mayors across the continent have recognised the challenge and have begun to respond. Greening cities is an important part of that response. Paris, for example, has pledged to plant thousands of trees in the hope of mitigating the effects of concrete and stone buildings absorbing and radiating heat over the course of the day. New buildings offer another opportunity to build better, and because the EU, recognising that most member states face a housing crisis, is supporting the development of new housing stock, it is possible to improve designs and finally build for heat. But the existing, historic stock continues to be a problem, also because there is a lot of it: in most EU member states, less than a quarter of residential building stock was built after 2000, while close to half is over 60 years old. Countries like Italy will struggle to reconcile new building functionality with historical heritage. The first requires innovation and new materials to deal with climate change. The second demands preservation. For a continent whose identity is anchored in history, building a different future is far from easy.
The BriefWire