According to the Copernicus report on the year 2025 published on Wednesday, "Europe has warmed twice as fast as the global average", with a multiplication of heat records which favor extreme climatic situations such as fires, melting ice and floods.

Published on: 04/29/2026 - 04:39 Modified on: 04/29/2026 - 07:18

Europe experienced extreme climatic situations last year, at a time when the continent is warming faster than elsewhere in the world and remains under threat of a return of the natural El Niño phenomenon, shows a report published Wednesday April 29.

“The climate indicators are quite worrying,” said Mauro Facchini, head of the Earth observation unit at the European Commission, during an exchange with journalists on Monday to present this report.

Published by the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), this report, which covers the year 2025, recalls that since the 1980s, "Europe has warmed twice as fast as the global average".

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The situation could get even worse with the El Niño phenomenon, which causes a rise in surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, and whose occurrence is "probable" this year, observed Celeste Saulo, the secretary general of the WMO, a UN agency, although it is still too early to say with certainty.

“Once again, this report reminds us that current measures in favor of the climate are not up to the scale of the crisis,” underlined the NGO WWF in a comment sent to AFP.

Europe sets heat records

“Heat waves are becoming more and more frequent and serious” on at least 95% of European territory, underlines the report, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Circle.

In the north of Europe, the Fennoscandia region, which includes Finland, Sweden and Norway, for example, recorded the longest heat wave since records began, with 21 days at 30°C or more in July, twice as long as the previous record.

Europe is setting heat records: in Turkey, the temperature exceeded 50°C for the first time in 2025, and in Greece, 85% of the population was affected by temperatures close to or above 40°C.

The west of the continent was also largely affected, from June with Spain, Portugal, France and part of the United Kingdom, and in August with Portugal, Spain and France, the report shows.

Inexorable melting of ice

Glaciers recorded a net mass loss in 2025, with Iceland, for example, experiencing its second largest annual melt in its history after 2005.

“Glaciers in Europe and around the world are predicted to continue to lose mass throughout the 21st century, regardless of emissions scenarios,” affecting two billion people who rely on mountain water, the report says.

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Particularly scrutinized because of its rate of warming, Greenland lost 139 gigatons of ice last year, enough to increase sea levels by 4 millimeters.

Oceans, biodiversity, fires...

The oceans also suffered, with a record 86% of ocean regions experiencing at least one day of a “severe” heat episode.

These heat waves have significant consequences on biodiversity, particularly on the underwater meadows of the Mediterranean, which act as natural marine barriers and are sensitive to high temperatures.

“These are key biodiversity areas that support thousands of fish per acre and provide essential breeding habitats,” said Claire Scannell, chief meteorologist at the Irish Weather Service and one of the authors of the report.

The areas ravaged by forest fires reached a record figure of 1,034,550 hectares.

Storms and floods have also killed at least 21 people and affected 14,500 people, although flooding and extreme rainfall have been less widespread than in recent years.

Growth of renewable energy

Among the good news, renewable energies represented for the third year in a row a greater share than that of fossil energies for the production of electricity, with 46.4% of production.

"It is not enough. We must accelerate," said Dusan Chrenek, senior advisor to the Climate Service of the European Commission, according to whom "we must work to gradually move away from fossil fuels", the main culprits of climate change.

With AFP

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