BRUSSELS — EU leaders should gather for an emergency summit to strengthen protections against extreme heat and reinforce the bloc’s climate efforts, said the European Green Party on Thursday.
Western Europe is suffering under a record-breaking heat wave this week, with temperatures in many countries inching close to or even exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
Nighttime temperatures are also extraordinarily high, posing significant risks to human health. The heat wave is forecast to move east toward Poland over the weekend.
Scientists agree that climate change is making such heat waves hotter and more frequent. At the same time, the EU has chipped away at its flagship European Green Deal — the package of measures to reduce the bloc’s planet-warming emissions to net-zero until 2050 — in a bid to boost economic performance.
