The News
Last year was Europe’s hottest on record and the continent is warming twice as fast as the global average, a new European Union report found, underscoring the challenge facing the bloc even as climate takes a political backseat.
2024’s extreme heat and floods cost some $20 billion lost in damages, the report found, stressing that the continent’s effort to bolster renewables — accounting for 45% of energy produced in 2024 — are particularly vulnerable to future infrastructure damage from climate change.
EU leaders have recently pushed to relax climate regulations in a bid to boost business, spurred by US tariffs and security threats from Russia: “We cannot hope or expect to successfully compete in a perilous world with one hand tied behind our backs,” one EU economic official said in February.
