BRUSSELS — The EU must start drawing up concrete plans to cope with life on a continent made 4 degrees Celsius hotter by climate change, the bloc’s scientific advisers said Tuesday.
That would mean accepting that the world is on track for a catastrophic temperature increase that will far exceed the targets agreed under the Paris climate accord and will massively disrupt life for Europeans.
“Europe’s climate is rapidly changing. It is not a distant or an abstract risk,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, the chair of the European scientific advisory board on climate change.
As the planet warms, weather extremes such as floods and droughts are posing a growing threat to Europe’s society, economy and ecosystems. In recent years, tens of thousands of Europeans have died in heat waves and hundreds more when rivers burst their banks; the annual repair bill for climate disasters has reached an average of €45 billion.
