Estimates suggest drop in production with vineyards also concerned ‘smoke taint’ from wildfires may affect quality
French vineyards hit by severe drought and heatwaves are expected to report a 30-year low in wine production after the country’s hottest ever recorded summer, according to the agriculture ministry.
Initial estimates suggest winemakers will produce just under 34m hectolitres from this year’s harvest: a drop of 6% on last year, and 17% less than the 2021-2025 average.
Agreste, the government’s farming food, forestry and fishing statistics body, said the drop was partly caused by a reduction in the number and size of vineyards, but mostly the result of extreme weather conditions.
“The summer was particularly hot and dry: soil drought has intensified throughout the country and heatwaves have caused localised sun scald, scorching, defoliation, and wilting of the grapes, reducing harvest volumes,” it reported.
A grape picker gets to work at the Trois Terres vineyard in Octon, southern France earlier this month. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA
However, some winemakers say with grape harvests still being conducted it is too early to make credible predictions.
The disappointing forecast comes after an optimistic start to the year, with heavy spring rains that encouraged grape growth. “The hot and dry summer conditions meant a deterioration of the [harvest] forecast,” Agreste reported.
A series of heatwaves brought the highest summer temperatures recorded in France since records began in 1900, with averages of 24C in June, July and August. Almost half of the country recorded temperatures on or above 40C.
Among the worst hit wine regions is Champagne where the grape harvest, which started unusually early in mid August, is predicted to be almost half that of last year. The Jura region in the east was the next worst hit with an estimated 37% loss. This year’s Burgundy-Beaujolais region grape production was expected to be one-third down, Agreste reported.
Winemakers in Bordeaux and the Languedoc-Roussillon as well as those in the south-east and south-west reported higher harvests this year but all except the Savoie region were down on the 2021-2025 five-year average for production.
However, Cécile Mathiaud of the Burgundy wine producers association said she was surprised by the government’s disastrous figures for her region’s vineyards.
“We know we won’t have a full harvest this year, but we have no definite figures and there’s no suggestion the situation is a disaster,” Mathiaud said. “We have some vineyards that have reported not much this year and others where it has been higher than expected.”
The harvest under way early in the morning at Trois Terres. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA
Some Burgundy vineyards began their harvest in early August but others are collecting the grapes now, she added. “Our reference is the historically low harvest of 2021 when we produced only 1m hectolitres; we think it will be higher this year, but the question is by how much? I have absolutely no idea how the ministry has come up with these figures.”
Agreste said the figures were estimates and definitive results would not be known until regions made official harvest declarations later this year. It added that 2026 grape harvests were “marked by significant regional disparities”.
Wine harvests have traditionally taken place in France between September and mid October, but the climate emergency has brought dates forward slightly each year for the last four decades. This year, the harvest timetable advanced at least a week compared with last year throughout the country. Some vineyards in Bordeaux began two weeks early.
There are also concerns that vines and grapes in some of France’s best-known wine producing regions, including Bordeaux, have been damaged by smoke from rampant wildfires. No major Bordeaux vineyards suffered direct damage from the flames that came within 15km (9 miles) of the city, but there is concern that smoke has entered the grape skins causing “smoke taint” and affecting the taste of the finished wine.
The agriculture ministry would normally issue harvest estimates in early August, but postponed its analysis at the request of the wine industry because of what it described as “the high level of uncertainty surrounding these forecasts” caused by weather conditions and wildfires.
France’s wine sector is already under pressure owing to a decline in demand. Annual wine consumption in the 1960s in France was 127 litres each year compared with 40 litres a year now.
Wine drinking in the US, France’s largest export market, has also dropped and French wines have been hit by Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Firefighters battle a wildfire in the Casaboli Forest near Palermo in Italy in July 2026. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The whole world is getting hotter as carbon
pollution from fossil fuel burning traps ever more heat, but Europe is
heating up twice as fast as other continents. The consequences are
increasingly deadly, with tens of thousands of heatwave deaths so far this summer.
Why is Europe most affected by global heating?
Land
requires less heat than the vast and deep oceans to warm up, so all
continents are warming more quickly than the seas. But Europe is
particularly vulnerable for four reasons: changed weather patterns, its
closeness to the Arctic, less snow and less air pollution.
As a result,
Europe is now 2.5C hotter than before the mass burning of fossil fuels,
almost double the global average 1.4C rise. Temperatures in Europe have
risen by 0.56C a decade since the mid-1990s, compared with 0.42C in
North America, 0.36C in Africa and 0.27C in South America.
How have Europe’s weather patterns changed?
Shifts
in how the atmosphere circulates over Europe have led to more frequent
and more intense summer heatwaves. This includes the worst ever
heatwave, in June 2026, in which a vast area of hot air was trapped
under a stationary “heat dome”.
Scientists are
still investigating the role of global heating in causing changes in
atmospheric circulation, but a link seems increasingly likely.
Dr Samantha
Burgess, from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said: “We see
statistically significant changes in surface pressure patterns and other
measures of circulation when we look at trends over the last 40 or more
years, and on this timescale they are more likely associated with
climate change than natural variability.”
The association may be the result of a changing jet stream, a fast high-level wind that has a powerful influence on Europe’s weather and is itself affected by rising temperatures.
Why is the Arctic important?
The
Arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet, despite having no
land. This is because the white polar ice cap, which normally reflects
the vast majority of sunlight back into space, is melting away fast. As a
result, the darker ocean exposed by the melting absorbs much more heat,
which then melts more ice, forming a vicious circle. With a significant
proportion of Europe relatively close to the Arctic, temperatures are
therefore rising faster.
What about snow cover?
Most
of Europe had snowfall in winter in the past. Like the Arctic sea ice,
this snow reflected sunlight and kept the continent cooler. But the
climate crisis is shrinking snow-covered areas.
In March 2025, Europe’s blanket of snow was about 1.3m square km
below the 1991-2020 average, a 31% drop. That lost area is roughly the
area of France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria combined. It was
the third lowest snow cover since records began in 1983.
Why does reduced air pollution affect temperatures?
Air
pollution kills millions of people globally every year and so Europe’s
record of cutting toxic air levels in recent decades is unequivocally a
good thing. However, cleaner air is also unmasking the impact of the
rise in carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere.
Air
pollution particles can reflect the sun’s rays, directly or by seeding
the formation of clouds, meaning the heat does not reach the ground.
Fewer particles means less reflection and more heat that is trapped by
greenhouse gases. Lower pollution might even be connected to the increase in blocking weather patterns.
How important is each of the four factors above?
The short answer is that scientists don’t yet know, but they aim to have an estimate next year.
Burgess
said: “What we can say is that the importance of each factor must vary
with season, with proximity to the Arctic important in autumn and
winter, and circulation changes since the late 1970s of greater
statistical significance in summer.”
The drop
in air pollution is most marked in winter because of declining coal
heating in homes, and snow cover is a winter issue. Winter warming in
Europe in recent decades has been strongest in the north, while summer
warming has been strongest in the south-east.
What are the consequences?
The
rapid heating is leading to ever more deaths and more intense wildfires
and droughts. Storms, intense rainfall and floods are also being
supercharged by the extra heat in the climate system. All deeply affect
lives and livelihoods across the continent and will continue to worsen
until emissions reach net zero. Rapid cuts in CO2 pollution and the rollout of measures to protect citizens are urgently needed.
The
UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, said in late July: “The awful costs of
this climate crisis – both human and economic – are now reaching
national emergency levels. What needs to be done is clear: leave coal,
oil and gas behind faster, scale up renewables, and protect people.”
The Major oak with
supporting poles in Sherwood Forest: ‘One of the main reasons that tree
died is because of these extreme weather conditions.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
England’s ancient oak trees are dying in the
summer’s extreme heat and dry weather, according to the Woodland Trust,
with trees and ecosystems unable to adapt fast enough to the changing
climate.
The heatwaves across much of Europe this summer have had a notable impact on crop growth
and plant health. To cope with the extreme conditions, many trees are
undergoing “early autumn”, wilting and losing their leaves early.
John Parker, the chief executive of the Arboricultural Association, said: “The signs of heat stress and dry weather is visible.”
Ed
Pyne, a senior conservation adviser at the Woodland Trust, said it was
helpful to think of trees like a large pipe constantly transporting
water, minerals and nutrients from the soil, through its roots, up its
trunk and out to its branches and leaves.
“When
the trees are losing too much water, it stops this process and that’s
when we start seeing the leaves wilting and dying, which can give rise
to this early autumn phenomenon where the trees are losing their leaves
early,” he said.
Fallen leaves on a pavement in London in July. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press/Shutterstock
While the impact of the extreme weather is widespread across different
species, Pyne said England’s ancient and veteran trees were being
disproportionately affected. “These really old trees, they’re survivors,
but, like us, when they get old they get a bit less resilient.”
This was made particularly visible by the death in June of the Major oak,
one of Europe’s oldest, largest and most celebrated ancient trees. “One
of the main reasons that tree died is because of these extreme weather
conditions,” Pyne said.
Oak trees are classed
as chronologically ancient from 400 years old onwards, although many
will have ancient characteristics from around 300 years. There are about
3,300 oak trees greater than 6 metres in circumference in England, and
about 114 over 9 metres. The rest of Europe combined, including Scotland
and Wales, has about 98 recorded oaks over 9 metres.
Sherwood
Forest lost eight ancient oak trees in 2024 and 2025, and Pyne has
identified seven in England and Wales that are now in a critical
condition:
Crow Leasow oak, Shropshire.
Tea Party oak, Suffolk.
King John oak, Devon.
Enmore oak, Somerset.
Lydham Manor oak, Shropshire.
Old Knobbley, Essex.
Pwllpriddog oak, Carmarthenshire.
The Tea Party oak is thought to be in critical condition. Photograph: Jim Woolf/Woodland Trust
He said: “When you get these incessant droughts
year after year, it’s a cumulative effect which compounds across time
and gets worse. Almost all of our ancient trees are struggling under
these conditions. They’re dying of this drought stress.”
Pyne’s
analysis of mortality rates of ancient oaks found that half could be
lost over the next 60 years. This analysis did not consider the changing
climate, so Pyne believes the figure is likely to be a significant
underestimate.
It is not just oak trees that
are affected. Parker said beech trees in particular were also struggling
with the heat. “They are possibly going into decline and may die, which
would be disastrous for us,” he said.
Alexander
Held, a senior expert at the European Forest Institute, said in Europe
even drought-tolerant trees such as pine trees were dying. “Our trees
can’t cope,” he said. The impact is varied, with some trees affected by
the heat and others sunburnt from the sunlight.
An oak tree in a parched park in Bexley, south-east London, last week. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Angelo Morgan, a director of urban tree
management at the company Trees UK of Bromley, said historically their
busy period had been the winter, when high winds and rain could cause a
whole root system to come up. But now they were receiving an increasing
number of calls to deal with “limb failure” in periods of hot and dry
weather.
“The tree’s vascular system isn’t
taking up as much moisture as it would normally do and so a lot of the
limbs become very brittle and a lot of larger limbs are failing,” he
said.
While forests are in a state of
permanent adaptation, Held said the problem was the speed of change.
“Our trees and ecosystems aren’t fast enough to cope with the speed of
change. These changes will likely be a big disruption to our
ecosystems,” he said.
The impact of the heat has been noticeable in satellite imagery
by Barbara Metzler, Mark Poynting and Paul Brown
The
impact of this summer's extreme temperatures on western Europe can now
be seen from space after successive heatwaves since May.
Satellite
images examined by BBC Verify show shrunken glaciers, scorched areas
left by wildfires, green fields turned arid and lower river levels.
And
some landmarks have been affected, too. The Palace of Versailles, south
of the French capital Paris, appears as an island of trees surrounded
by brown fields in these images.
The
EU's climate monitoring service, Copernicus, has confirmed that western
Europe experienced its hottest June-to-July period on record.
The
immediate cause of the heatwaves has been persistent high-pressure
weather systems bringing clear, sunny skies and allowing temperatures to
build, according to the Met Office.
But
climate change, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels, has been
raising average temperatures for decades and making hot spells much more
likely and intense.
We've taken a look at how the sweltering weather has left its mark on landscapes across the continent.
Rivers run drier
The waters of the Danube, Europe's second-longest river, have dropped to their lowest levels for 30 years in several countries.
This
has led to unusual discoveries on the river bed, including the bones of
a mammoth in Bulgaria and a sunken WW2 warship in Serbia. You can see
the sunken ship has emerged from the deep in the right-hand image below.
And
where the river snakes through Hungary and Romania, nuclear power
stations have been forced to shut down or run at reduced capacity for
some time because of an inability to use river water for cooling.
Meanwhile on the Rhine, some cargo vessels have been left stranded and river cruises have been cancelled.
Retreating glaciers in the Alps
Even the snow-capped peaks of the Alps have not escaped the heat.
And
where the river snakes through Hungary and Romania, nuclear power
stations have been forced to shut down or run at reduced capacity for
some time because of an inability to use river water for cooling.
Meanwhile on the Rhine, some cargo vessels have been left stranded and river cruises have been cancelled.
Retreating glaciers in the Alps
Even the snow-capped peaks of the Alps have not escaped the heat.
Dr
Lander van Tricht, glaciologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology, said in recent years climate change has led to "much less
snow in winter and much, much more melt in summer.
"And if we continue this trend, then the future looks very dramatic for the Alps."
Wildfires turn landscapes brown
Wildfires have transformed parts of western Europe this summer, too.
More
than 90,000 hectares (900 sq km or 350 sq miles) has burned in France.
This is already its worst year on record, according to the European
Forest Fire Information System.
The
largest fire in Gironde region, where the city of Bordeaux is situated,
burnt about 42,000 hectares of land - roughly equivalent in size to the
Isle of Wight.
Part of the reason this year has been particularly bad for wildfires is that land has been tinder-dry.
Dr
Douglas Kelley of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology tells us
extreme wildfires are becoming "more and more frequent" as climate
change is creating ideal conditions, with higher temperatures drying out
vegetation and soils faster.
Even zoomed-out satellite imagery of western France shows a striking increase in the browning of land compared to last year.
To
assess whether 2026 is unusual we used the Normalised Difference
Vegetation Index (NDVI), a measure which uses satellite data to assess
how green and healthy vegetation is. Lower readings indicate more sparse
or stressed vegetation.
The
NDVI this summer came in below a five-year benchmark of 2021 to 2025
across about 70% of France. Close to half the UK and roughly 40% of
western Germany showed the same.
Prof
Andrew Challinor, from the University of Leeds, said the images were
"consistent with widespread water stress", which "does not bode well"
given much of Europe's land is covered by crops meaning it could hit the
agriculture industry and food production.
In
the worst-affected areas, soil moisture is lower than on about 98% of
comparable dates in the historical record, according to Prof Luis
Samaniego, from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.
And, he warns, even if rain returns, some of the agricultural damage may already have been done.
The Guardian travelled 100 miles along the EU’s longest river, where some residents are struggling to secure drinking water
For centuries, the rock was seen as a warning.
When it began to emerge from the Danube, beneath Gellért Hill in
Budapest, it meant the river had fallen so low that floating mills could
no longer operate, crops were probably failing, and hunger would almost
certainly follow. That is why, in the Hungarian capital, where over
time the boulder became little more than a legend, it was named Ínség-szikla – the Rock of Starvation.
Today,
amid record-low water levels on the Danube, the rock has not only
emerged from the water, but surfaced almost in its entirety, along with
the sandy riverbed on which it rests, astonishing geologists and
government scientists sent to examine it. And, much as the rock was said
to warn, Hungary is now facing an unprecedented energy crisis that has
forced the country to shut down all but one of its Danube-cooled nuclear reactors for the first time in 44 years.
The
Guardian travelled for more than 100 miles (160km) along the banks of
the Danube, the EU’s longest river, which sustains the 10 countries it
crosses, visiting villages and towns where residents are struggling to
secure drinking water and farmers are fighting to keep their crops
alive.
Pócsmegyer
Last week, the Hungarian prime minister, Péter Magyar, warned
that the economic damage caused by this year’s drought was expected to
surpass that of the historic dry spell that devastated Hungary’s
farmland in 2022.
István Somogyi has lost nearly 50% of his harvest this year
While the full extent of the losses is still difficult to assess, István
Somogyi, a 56-year-old farmer from Pócsmegyer, a village on the Danube,
in Pest County, has already done his calculations.
“I’ve lost nearly 50% of my harvest this year and
it could go up to 70%,” he said. “It’s gone. Everything has dried up.
Since I started farming this land after the end of communist rule, I’ve
never seen a catastrophe like this.”
Somogyi
said the unprecedented crisis did not come out of nowhere, and that the
heatwaves and droughts of previous years had already offered a warning.
Scientists say that human-caused climate breakdown is making every heatwave in the world more intense and more likely to happen.
“You
could see this coming,” he said. “The harvest was already poor last
year. But we were lucky because the Danube stayed high. Despite the
intense heat, there was still enough water in the soil. This time, there
is no hope of saving our crops.”
On the
near-deserted roads running alongside the river, families with children
sought relief in the Danube’s shallow waters, while, not far away,
military water tankers were siphoning water from rural wells, hauling
vital supplies to the storage pools that feed the local grid.
Szentendre
Low water levels in the Danube at Szentendre
Across the river from Pócsmegyer, on the opposite bank of the Danube,
lies Szentendre, a town known for its community of artists. During the
most intense days of the heatwave, some evening performances have been
held by candlelight in an effort to reduce electricity consumption.
Aerial view of a long boat filled with people in shallow water
Here, in recent weeks, vast, desert-like islands have emerged. The
exposed riverbed is cracked like a mosaic of hard, dry clay, baked by
suffocating heat that has pushed temperatures in Budapest close to 42C,
with overnight temperatures hitting a high of 28C. Europe is warming
faster than any other continent, with intense summer heat and prolonged
drought being amplified by the deepening human-caused climate crisis.
Extreme conditions continue to fuel wildfires and strain water supplies.
József Gulyás stands in front of stocks of bottled water being kept at the town hall in case of supply shortages
In some stretches of the Danube near Szentendre, it is now possible to walk through it with the water barely reaching above your ankles.
“Swimming
and navigation are banned here,” said László Balázs, 44, head of the
local river rescue service. “But people escaping the heat still enter
the water, unaware it can suddenly drop into deep pools where they risk
drowning.”
At the end of June, Budapest police (BRFK) said three people had gone missing
in the Danube over a single weekend. Water police later recovered one
body near Iváncsa, while searches continued downstream for the other two
missing swimmers.
The drought and resulting
disruption to energy supplies have also left some Hungarian towns
struggling with shortages of drinking water. In a room inside
Szentendre’s tourist information office, thousands of bottles of water
are stored ready to be distributed, particularly to elderly and
vulnerable residents.
“About 4,000 to 5,000 households were left without water,” said József
Gulyás, 62, Szentendre’s deputy mayor. “We distributed 25 tonnes of
water and received about 100 emergency calls a day. We had never
experienced anything so serious. Elderly women would hug the officers
delivering water and burst into tears.”
Budapest
A geologist takes advantage of the low water levels to view the ‘Rock of Starvation’
Driving from north to south, towards the Hungarian capital, Budapest,
where the level of the Danube under normal conditions reaches an average
height of 2 to 3 metres, and can rise as high as 8 metres, intense
summer heat and continuing drought conditions caused the river to fall
to a record low of just 14-19 cm on 4 August.
The water levels have fallen so dramatically that, as the Danube has
retreated, it has revealed a succession of relics long hidden beneath
its waters, including the remains of a woolly mammoth, a bridge destroyed after the second world war in Budapest, a Nazi warship and an unexploded British bomb.
Tourists
and passersby look down over the side of the Liberty bridge in
Budapest. The remains of an older bridge can be seen the shallow waters
below.
The water is so low in the capital that on 28 July, at about 4.30pm,
Gábor Kürti, president of the Magyar Kerékpárosklub (Hungarian cyclists’
club) and owner of a cargo bike company, left his office in central
Budapest, jumped on his bicycle and, in an unprecedented feat, rode for
30km along the exposed bed of the Danube, with his journey quickly going
viral on social media.
“I wanted to show that if you can cycle along the
bed of the Danube for 30km, it means that, because of this climate
emergency, we have literally hit rock bottom,” he told the Guardian.
Riding
his KTM X-Strada 20 gravel bike, Kürti set off from the mouth of the
Szilas stream (Szilas-patak) and made his way across fine gravel, large
pebbles, hard-packed sand and mud, eventually reaching the ferry
terminal at Vác about three hours later.
“For
many people it was an extraordinary adventure. For me, it was
heartbreaking,” he said. “Cycling through parts of the river where, as a
child, I used to swim or go kayaking, and which I could now cross on a
bicycle, filled me with an indescribable sadness. It was like looking at
the scene of a terrible accident. Throughout that journey, the scale of
the catastrophe was unfolding before my eyes.”
Nagytétény
The Kis-Háros-sziget island nature reserve is
usually only accessible by boat but is now reachable by foot, as low
water levels in the Danube have exposed the river bed connecting the
island to the mainland
Kürti took the Guardian into what, until only a
few months ago, was the striking floodplain forest in Nagytétény named
Kis-Háros-sziget, a protected area home to climbing plants, wild vines
and several families of European beavers.
The
river is reached by walking across ground that would normally lie
several metres beneath the water. Here, one branch of the Danube has
receded so dramatically that it came to an abrupt halt, blocked by an
exposed riverbed left behind by the drought.
Its
dry, clay-like surface looks like an image from a future shaped by the
escalating human-caused climate crisis. Yet this is happening now.
Passersby walk across what was once the river, their feet sinking into
patches of mud. Kayakers struggle to make their way through the
remaining shallow channels; many eventually give up, lift their kayaks
on to their shoulders and walk home.
Hungary’s only nuclear power station, in Paks near to the banks of the river Danube
Continuing south, the road finally reaches Paks, home to Hungary’s
nuclear power plant, its towers rising above the horizon. Here,
municipal workers have been working weekends to keep more than 700
threatened trees alive and water the town’s flowerbeds.
Szilvia Farkas: ‘I have never seen so much vegetation dry out in all my years doing this job.’
“I’ve been doing this job for 18 years,” said
Szilvia Farkas, 39, who is employed by Dunakom Zrt in Paks, owned
entirely by the municipality, to plant and water trees and plants. “I
have never seen so much vegetation dry out in all my years doing this
job, and I have never worked as hard as I have this year to try to keep
it alive.”
Dunakom Zrt uses its own drilled
well for water extraction. In addition, the company is able to extract
water from a decantation basin. The public is not permitted to use tap
water for irrigation at the moment; instead, residents collect greywater
and use it to water their gardens.
In the
country’s more marginalised and deprived areas, the water crisis has
compounded longstanding problems for thousands of people who were
already living in difficult conditions before the drought, struggling
with inadequate access to running water and sewage systems.
Géza
Orsós Renáta, 43, who lives with her four children in a small farmhouse
on the outskirts of Paks, has never had access to running water. Orsós,
who also works for Dunakom Zrt, helping to water public green spaces
drying out in the heat, has long relied on water from a neighbour.
Géza Orsós Renáta is helping to water public green spaces drying out in the heat
“Even in winter, we have to pump water and heat
it in large bowls so we can wash,” she said. “Now a friend brings us
water once a week. But it is becoming unbearable.”
Driving
back from Paks, tall, swollen clouds occasionally gather on the horizon
in the clear skies above Budapest, appearing to promise the return of
rain, only to fade by evening, dashing the hopes of an entire country.
For
now, people can do little but cling to the hope that the Rock of
Starvation will disappear once more beneath the currents of the Danube,
returning to the depths of the river and becoming little more than a
legend again.
But Somogyi, who grew up hearing
the story of the boulder passed down through generations, and who is
now witnessing the consequences of the warning it was said to foretell,
knows it will not.
“The drought will return next year,” he said. “That is the trend. And there isn’t much that we can do.”
Calor recorde e seca tiveram impacto sobre produção de energia,
transporte fluvial e saúde pública. Clima pressiona PIBs da região, que
deve enfrentar queda no crescimento.
As temperaturas extremas dos últimos dois meses na Europa, durante o verão no Hemisfério Norte, já deixam à mostra o potencial impacto econômico das mudanças climáticas.
No total, a repercussão sobre a economia da região já pode ser medida
em centenas de bilhões de euros, estimam economistas e acadêmicos. Eles
alertam que os custos deverão subir ainda mais rápido do que os
termômetros na Europa, onde o clima está mudando a passos mais rápidos do que no resto do mundo.
A Europa Ocidental registrou os meses de junho e julho mais quentes
já observados, com temperatura média de 21,62 °C , informou nesta
segunda-feira o Serviço de Mudanças Climáticas Copernicus, da União Europeia (UE). O número ficou 2,79 °C acima da média de junho do período entre 1991 e 2020.
"O que torna 2026 particularmente preocupante do ponto de vista
econômico é o fato de haver múltiplos episódios de eventos extremos",
disse a economista Sehrish Usman, da Universidade de Mannheim.
A previsão dos economistas é que os danos provavelmente superarão
todos os níveis anteriores. Os prejuízos a setores específicos se
capilarizam ao pressionar as finanças públicas, provocar fortes
oscilações na inflação, redesenhar o mapa do turismo e forçar a Europa a
repensar a forma como produz energia e transporta mercadorias.
Pressão sobre PIBs
Assim como em junho e em parte de maio, as condições em julho foram
mais secas do que a média em muitas regiões da Europa. Áreas da
Península Ibérica, França, Alemanha, Áustria, Hungria e Reino Unido
foram particularmente afetados, segundo o Copernicus.
A navegação nos rios Reno e Danúbio, artérias fundamentais para o
transporte de cargas, está severamente limitada devido ao baixo nível
das águas. Mais de meia dúzia de reatores nucleares tiveram suas
operações interrompidas ou reduzidas por dificuldades de resfriamento,
também em razão da seca.
A paralisação do transporte no Reno, por si só, reduzirá o Produto
Interno Bruto (PIB) da Alemanha, terceira maior economia do mundo, em
0,3 ponto percentual neste ano, estimou o banco ING. Já o MBH Bank, da
Hungria, calcula um impacto de 0,1 ponto percentual no PIB para cada
semana em que a maior usina nuclear do país permanecer fora de operação.
As estimativas para a produção agrícola, enquanto isso, foram
revisadas para baixo. As culturas colhidas mais tarde no verão, como
milho e girassol, já registraram perdas de 6% a 7% em julho.
A umidade da camada superficial do solo na Europa Ocidental em julho
ficou significativamente abaixo dos níveis observados durante julho de
2022, quando o continente também enfrentou uma seca severa.
"À medida que os solos secam, eles perdem sua capacidade de
proporcionar resfriamento natural, permitindo que o calor se acumule com
mais facilidade", afirma Samantha Burgess, do Copernicus. "Este é um
exemplo claro de como as mudanças climáticas estão intensificando os
episódios de calor extremo, com calor e seca reforçando-se mutuamente de
forma cada vez mais frequente."
Queda do crescimento
Ao mesmo tempo, os custos das ações emergenciais, como o combate a
incêndios ou a redução do consumo de energia, pressionam orçamentos
públicos. O calor intenso pressiona também a saúde pública: somente a
Alemanha registrou mais de 10 mil mortes relacionadas às altas temperaturas.
Apenas a onda de calor de duas semanas registrada em junho – houve
quatro ondas de calor excepcionais desde a primavera, segundo o
Copernicus – reduzirá o PIB da Europa em 0,3 ponto percentual, previu,
por sua vez, a seguradora alemã Allianz. Além disso, as mudanças
climáticas devem cortar entre 5% e 7% do crescimento econômico até 2030
nas economias mais expostas, como Espanha, França e Itália.
"A conta total deste ano será muito maior", aponta Hazem Krichene,
economista da Allianz. "Esse número não inclui os incêndios, as secas,
diferentes episódios de enchentes ou o esperado fenômeno El Niño."
Considerando que a zona do euro deve crescer apenas 1% neste ano, o
impacto é significativo. Ainda assim, a extensão completa dos danos
econômicos só será sentida vários anos depois, segundo Usman.
"Seria de se esperar que os danos fossem maiores no ano em que ocorre
um evento extremo e depois diminuíssem, mas encontramos justamente o
contrário", afirmou. "O impacto econômico cresce nos anos seguintes
porque os eventos climáticos extremos desencadeiam uma série de
consequências econômicas mais lentas."
Impactos maiores no Sul
O Sul da Europa pode sofrer os maiores impactos, já que os picos de
temperatura são mais intensos nessa região, reduzindo receitas do
turismo, agravando perdas agrícolas e estimulando a migração para outras
áreas.
"Você consegue imaginar turistas caminhando pelo sul da Itália ou da
Espanha com 45 °C? Eu não. Por isso, acredito que a natureza do turismo
vai mudar", disse o economista Carsten Brzeski, do ING.
Calor extremo poderá impactar negativamente o turismo de verão nos países do Sul da Europa, que movimenta a economia regionalFoto: Francesco Fotia/Avalon/Photoshot/picture alliance
Segundo os especialistas, os países do Sul poderão receber mais
turistas ao longo de todo o ano. Mas os picos de verão devem diminuir à
medida que viajantes optem por destinos mais ao norte, afetando o setor
de hospedagem e turismo da região.
Os eventos climáticos extremos deverão também aumentar o preço dos alimentos, complicando ainda mais a tarefa do Banco Central Europeu (BCE) de manter a inflação na meta. A tendência é que as áreas mais quentes sejam as mais impactadas.
Segundo estimativas de Maximilian Kotz, pesquisador do Barcelona
Supercomputing Center, o calor extremo de 2022 elevou a inflação da zona
do euro em 0,34 ponto percentual por meio do aumento dos preços dos
alimentos, com impacto desproporcional sobre os países do sul.
Ao mesmo tempo, a interrupção do transporte fluvial dificulta o
abastecimento de combustíveis em partes da Europa, ampliando as
diferenças regionais de preços.
Risco de endividamento público
A Allizanz estima ainda que a redução anual de receitas tributárias
causada pela perda de atividade econômica pode chegar a 1,8% na França e
a 1,3% na Itália e na Espanha.
As margens de lucro das empresas também devem diminuir, reduzindo
investimentos e ampliando as perdas econômicas. Ao mesmo tempo, os
custos aumentam, tanto porque os governos precisam financiar respostas
emergenciais quanto porque precisam investir em medidas de adaptação,
como tornar mais resilientes a geração de energia e as rotas de
transporte.
"Uma preocupação central é que os países ainda dependem
excessivamente de respostas emergenciais improvisadas, que são caras e
frequentemente pouco eficientes", afirma Heather Grabbe, pesquisadora
sênior do centro de estudos Bruegel.
Mas os investidores podem reagir negativamente caso os governos
tentem ampliar os gastos. Os níveis de endividamento já são elevados,
especialmente na França e na Itália.
"Com uma lista tão longa de necessidades de gastos, a tendência será
de aumento do endividamento público", disse Brzeski. "Isso poderá
significar pressão sobre o BCE para intervir novamente e ampliar os
programas de compra de ativos caso ocorra uma venda repentina de títulos
nos mercados."
O BCE, ao longo da última década comprou trilhões de euros em títulos
da dívida pública para manter baixos os custos de financiamento quando a
inflação estava abaixo da meta.
Firefighters in Gironde are facing an "unprecedented" situation as they
battle a blaze that "has a life of its own", the interior minister has
warned
by Jaroslav Lukiv
The
mayor of Bordeaux has said he is bracing for "all eventualities", as one
of multiple wildfires burning in France is now 15km (nine miles) from
the south-western city.
"We are preparing to accommodate a large number of people should further evacuations be ordered," said Thomas Cazenave.
President
Emmanuel Macron, visiting the fire-ravaged area in the Gironde region,
said the country was facing a "completely unprecedented wildfire" - the
"toughest since World War Two".
Some
220,000 people have been evacuated in France and more than 100,000 in
Spain, where fires are burning "uncontrolled" west of Madrid.
Another intense heatwave on Tuesday could further hamper firefighting efforts.
Macron said a smaller fire in the Landes region had been contained, but the fight continued in neighbouring Gironde.
While
firefighters had made progress on Monday, improving the situation
compared to 24 hours before, he warned that "temperatures are set to
rise again, the wind is still present, and therefore we must remain
humble".
Earlier, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez had said the fire "has a life of its own".
Jerome Steffe, the mayor of Cestas, a town south of Bordeaux, told the BBC this "will be the fire of the century".
He
described how 17,000 residents were evacuated from his town during the
night when the fire swelled two days ago. So far, he said, the region
has seen 42,000 hectares (103,000 acres) of land burned and 240 houses
destroyed.
"In my city the situation is really catastrophic," he added.
And
although the fire is no longer moving as quickly, he said his teams
have "won only a small battle" and emphasised that the risk remains from
flying embers or a sudden change in wind direction.
"We
put all our energy into creating protective firebreaks," he explained,
but admitted "we are all scared in front of this situation."
French
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu warned the country "is going through
an unprecedented fire season", with 116,085 hectares (286,852 acres)
burned and 13,566 fire starts recorded since January.
The
minister revealed in a post on X that nine out of 10 fires "are
human-caused and most arise from carelessness: a cigarette butt, a
barbecue, work carried out without precaution".
But
he also said that not all these fires are accidents and some are
deliberately set, adding that since 6 July, 162 arrests have taken
place.
Wildfires are also burning in several other French regions, including
Var and Landes, and also in Haute-Corse on the island of Corsica.
Meanwhile,
neighbouring Spain on Monday entered its fifth day of a national
emergency because of raging wildfires west of the capital Madrid.
BBC
Verify has been analysing satellite imagery showing the spread of the
wildfire west of Madrid, which has now affected more than 27,000
hectares.
Satellite
images, captured on 24 and 26 July, show how the fire spread over two
days after several blazes in the Almorox, Villa del Prado and San Martín
de Valdeiglesias areas merged into one large fire.
The images show the rapid expansion of the burn scar as the wildfire spread.
Local officials have warned that the region faces the "worst fires in its history".
Climate
change is driving up temperatures around the world, and Europe is the
fastest warming continent, heating up twice as fast as the global
average, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
This is causing increased summer heatwaves, greater pressure on Europe's water supply, and more intense wildfires.
Coming days are ‘absolutely critical’ for firefighters before temperatures rise again this week, officials say
Firefighters in France
and Spain are racing to bring huge wildfires under control before
another heatwave this week that will complicate efforts to tame the
flames.
Spain’s interior minister, Fernando
Grande-Marlaska, said Monday and Tuesday were “absolutely crucial days”
before temperatures rise again from Wednesday, prompting prime minister,
Pedro Sánchez, to warn: “We face difficult hours, complex hours” ahead.
EU
officials have said wildfires could still be burning until early
November in what threatens to be a record-breaking year for the area of
land burned.
A wildfire burns near Cestas in Gironde province in south-west France. Photograph: Julien Soulard/EPA
A fire in the hilly terrain of Ávila, west of
Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, burning 50,000 hectares
(125,000 acres). Authorities are battling two separate fires north-west
of Madrid, taking the total area of scorched land near the capital to
70,000 hectares.
Spain’s state meteorological
agency, Aemet, said the heatwave would last until “at least” Sunday,
“making firefighting efforts more difficult due to high temperatures
[and] locally gusty southerly winds.”
France
was also in “a race against time” to control wildfires before another
heatwave this week, said Eric Brocardi, a fire service spokesperson.
Weather forecasters have said temperatures could reach 40C (104F) is
some parts of the country from Tuesday.
Charred cars in the Spanish village of Chapinería on Monday. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters
This would complicate efforts to control the wildfire in Gironde in
south-west France, which the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, described
as “extremely intense and unpredictable … generating its own winds and
advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area”.
The mayor of Bordeaux, Thomas Cazenave, told the
BBC he is bracing for “all eventualities”, as the fire advanced to
within 15km (nine miles) from the city. “We are preparing to accommodate
a large number of people should further evacuations be ordered,” he
said.
On a visit to Bordeaux, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “The coming weeks will be tough and we have to hold out.”
But
he said a smaller fire in the adjoining Landes – which forced the
evacuation of more than 30,000 people – was “contained” but remained
“virulent”. “We must be extremely cautious over the next few hours and
the coming days,” he said.
The Gironde fire
has so far burned 42,000 hectares, making it one of the biggest
devastations of land in France since the second world war.
In
the Cestas commune, about 10 miles from the city of Bordeaux,
firefighters used mechanical diggers to uproot trees in an attempt to
create a firebreak.
The vast fire, which has triggered the evacuation
of 220,000 people, had not progressed during the early hours of Monday
but was “not contained” and remained “very complicated to control”,
Nuñez said.
Speaking after an emergency
meeting of the French government on Monday, he described this year’s
wildfires as “completely exceptional”. More than 116,000 hectares of
forest and vegetation have been burned since January, far exceeding the
70,000 hectares reported for the whole of 2025.
Spain’s government said the 172,000 hectares of
forested land burned this year was six times greater than the equivalent
figure for 2025.
Sánchez, told a climate conference the wildfires were not isolated incidents.
“It
is the most painful manifestation of a climate emergency that is making
… wildfires more voracious and heatwaves more frequent, and as a result
our land more vulnerable,” he said. “It is no longer an exception. It
is the rule.”
The European Commission’s lead
official on the green transition, Teresa Ribera, said Europe was not
prepared for the consequences of the climate crisis. In an interview with El País
she said the commission would propose an adaptation strategy in October
that would be much more comprehensive than policies implemented so far.
Pedro Sánchez visits a firefighters’ control centre in La Vall d’Uixo. Photograph: Manuel Bruque/EPA
A series of heatwaves, including record-breaking temperatures in June, that scientists say would have been impossible without the climate crisis, has left parched soils and tinder-dry vegetation that have fuelled this summer’s fires.
A
European Commission official said the wildfire season had begun in
April and could last until early November. Officials also stressed the
rising risks for fighting wildfires from the middle of the week in
France, Spain and Greece.
The EU executive has
coordinated the dispatch of seven planes and four helicopters to
France, as well as six planes and three forest firefighting teams to
Spain, after the countries triggered the bloc’s emergency assistance
mechanism. EU officials have also been sent to the Bordeaux region to
assist local authorities.
A fire engine drives through smoke near Marcheprime outside Bordeaux. Photograph: Emma Da Silva/AP
Officials stressed the unprecedented nature of
recent fires, which have spread rapidly over large areas. A commission
official said that a recent fire in southern Spain that killed 13 people had reached speeds of 4 mph, while firefighters are able to react only to fires moving 300 metres an hour or less.
The
scale of Europe’s wildfires has raised questions about the continent’s
ability to respond. Italy is among about 10 European countries that have
sent firefighting equipment or teams to France and Spain while
grappling with its own blazes.
Several fires
broke out in northern and central Portugal, officials said, with over
1,000 firefighters and other professionals battling the flames.
Firefighters
fought to extinguish a major wildfire in Italy’s southern region of
Puglia on Monday. More than 400 people, many of them tourists staying in
campsites set among pine forests, were evacuated by sea from the
Gargano peninsula on Sunday as the blaze, fanned by strong winds,
encroached on beaches.
A further 58 people were evacuated from their homes in Maratea as a wildfire swept through neighbouring Basilicata.
Italy is bracing for its fourth heatwave this year as temperatures edge up towards highs of 38C to 40C from Wednesday.
Smoke
from the fires in France is continuing to cause a “marked
deterioration” in air quality across a swathe of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine
region and beyond, with health authorities warning about the danger.
Elderly
people, pregnant women and those with respiratory issues and chronic
conditions were advised to take precautions. Local health authorities
said people should close windows, wear an FFP2 mask outside and avoid
strenuous activity.
The prime minister’s office said more than 1.5 million FFP2 masks had been sent to the region.
.svg.webp)
