‘Is Paris burning?’

The famous quote of the title, often attributed to Adolf Hitler, has now come back in a completely different context. The “heat dome” causing scorching temperatures across western Europe and north Africa, is boiling athletes and spectators at the Olympic Games in Paris. This would have been impossible without human-caused global heating, a rapid analysis has found. The analysis assessed the dangerous heat in July that sent temperatures soaring past 40 degrees Celsius in many places, increasing the spread of wildfires in Portugal and Greece and worsening water shortages in Italy and Spain. In Morocco, temperatures reached 48 degrees Celsius, with one hospital reporting 21 deaths.

The heat would have caused many more people to die prematurely across the region. But assembling the required data, where it exists, takes time. Extreme heat in the European summer of 2022 is now known to have led to 61,000 early deaths. The July heatwave was caused by a large-scale high-pressure ridge, often referred to as a “heat dome”. It occurred after 13 months of extreme heat globally, with each of the last 13 months being the hottest ever recorded. Scientists said the fossil-fuelled climate crisis made temperatures 2.5 degrees Celsius to 3.3 degrees Celsius hotter. Such an event would not have happened in the world before global heating but is now expected about once a decade, the report said. Continued emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide will make them even more frequent, the researchers warned.

Climate change has badly affected the Olympics, according to the climatologists at Imperial College London and part of the World Weather Attribution group behind the analysis. The world watched athletes swelter in 35 degrees Celsius heat. If the atmosphere wasn’t overloaded with emissions from burning fossil fuels, Paris would have been about 3 degrees Celsius cooler and much safer for sport. Numerous athletes, including the gymnastics superstar Simone Biles, have suffered in the heat, with one tennis player having called it “crazy” and sailing competitors having worn ice vests to keep cool. Fans watching the beach volleyball near the Eiffel Tower were sprayed with hoses, while misting fountains have been set up at skateboarding and other venues and millions of bottles of water have been handed out at train and Metro stations. Air conditioning machines are getting installed in the rooms of the Games Village.

However, many people across the Mediterranean do not have the luxury of ice-packs, air conditioning or cooling breaks at work. For these people, extreme heat can mean death. The new analysis helps people understand that climate change is not a distant threat, but an immediate one that is already making life on Earth much more dangerous. The analysis was built on studies of heatwaves in the Mediterranean region in April and July 2023, which used weather data and computer climate models. This foundation meant that only weather data was needed for the new analysis, allowing it to be produced almost immediately. Hundreds of these attribution studies have now been completed, covering heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods and storms. They include a growing number of otherwise impossible events and demonstrate how human-caused heating has already supercharged extreme weather across the globe. As long as humans burn oil, gas and coal, heatwaves will get hotter and more people will die premature deaths, this is for sure. The good news is that we do not need some magic solution to stop things from getting worse. We know exactly what we need to do and have the technology and knowledge needed to do it – replace fossil fuels with renewable energy and stop deforestation. The faster we do this, the better.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said, “I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries.” He spoke a day after a surge in fresh oil and gas exploration in 2024 was reported by scientists, with countries such as the US and the UK leading the charge, handing out a record 825 oil and gas licences in 2023. Heat action plans, which involve early warning systems, water and first aid stations, and changed hours for outdoor workers, have been implemented in countries like France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

But, hats off to the organisers of the Paris Olympics for showcasing a sustainable and eco-friendly model of the sporting extravaganza, in spite of the climate change effects that have hit the game. They have used clean and green energy, besides implementing the three ‘Rs’ — recycle, reuse and reduce — for the material used for making medals, furniture, etc. Electric boats for the opening ceremony and geo-positioned buoys for the competitions to limit anchoring in those areas are among the other noteworthy features. These environment-friendly concepts should be applied to all international events, not just sporting ones. Let’s save the environment in order to save our planet.

Views expressed are personal