Global warming fuels hotter Brussels summers

11 August 2005

BRUSSELS — The average summer mean temperature in Brussels has risen in the past 30 years by 1.2 degrees Celsius, global conservation organisation WWF said.

In analysing the temperatures of 16 European capital cities, the WWF report said the average summer temperature in Madrid increased the most.

Luxembourg recorded a 2 degree rise in summer temperatures to rank second, followed by Stockholm (1.5 degrees) and Brussels, Rome and Vienna (1.2).

However, according to the WWF report ‘Europe feels the heat’, London was the European capital most affected by climate change.

It said the average maximum summer temperature in the British capital has risen by 2 degrees Celsius in the past 30 years.

The Greek capital Athens and Portuguese capital Lisbon recorded an increase in summer maximum temperatures of 1.9 degrees, followed by Warsaw (1.3) and Berlin (1.2).

And in the last five years, average summer temperatures in 13 of the 16 cities examined were at least 1 degree higher than during the first five years of the 1970s.

WWF said the figures reinforced the role the energy sector plays in global warming. It said the power sector was responsible for 37 percent of man-made Carbon Dioxide CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, mainly coal.

“Summer temperatures in Europe’s cities are heading for an ‘unbearable’ reading on the thermometer,” the director of the WWF PowerSwitch! campaign, Imogen Zethoven, said.

“Scientists estimate that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are doubling the risk of more record-breaking hikes in temperature.”

The WWF warned of more frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts and rainstorms as average temperatures increase.

“To make Europe’s cities liveable in summer we must guarantee the cuts needed in emissions to switch off global warming,” Zethoven said. “EU governments must enforce stricter CO2 limits required under the European Emissions Trading Scheme.”

Subject: Belgian news