‘The new normal’: how Europe is being hit by a climate-driven drought crisis
The Guardian
Europe’s most severe drought in decades is hitting homes, factories, farmers and freight across the continent, as experts warn drier winters and searing summers fuelled by global heating mean water shortages will become “the new normal”.
The EU European Drought Observatory has calculated that 45% of the bloc’s territory was under drought warning by mid-July, with 15% already on red alert, prompting the European Commission to warn of a “critical” situationin multiple regions.
Conditions have deteriorated since as repeated heatwaves roll across the continent. In France, the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, last week activated a crisis unit to tackle a drought Météo-France described as the country’s worst since records began in 1958.
