Quick Read
- Europe is experiencing unprecedented winter storms and floods, leading to fatalities and widespread damage.
- The severe weather, linked to climate modify, includes record rainfall in the UK and saturated soils in France.
- Scientists attribute the intensity to a southward jet stream shift and global heating, which increases moisture retention.
- Despite escalating impacts, climate modify denial is growing, and green policies are being rolled back in Europe.
- Past disasters, like the 2024 Valencia floods, highlight a critical lack of preparedness and delayed official warnings.
BRUSSELS (Azat TV) – Europe is grappling with a series of severe winter storms and unprecedented flooding, signaling a new reality of intensified climate impacts across the continent. These escalating weather extremes, which have claimed lives and cautilized widespread devastation from Spain to the UK, are occurring amidst a concerning rise in climate modify denial and a rollback of green policies, prompting urgent calls for greater adaptation and political accountability.
The devastating effects became tragically clear in the timeless week between Christmas and the new year when two Spanish men, Francisco Zea Bravo and Antonio Morales Serrano, lost their lives in Málaga as heavy rains transformed the Fahala River into an “uncontrollable torrent.” Their deaths were among at least 16 fatalities reported in neighboring Portugal due to back-to-back storms. Across France, soils have reached unprecedented saturation levels, leading to widespread flood alerts, while parts of the UK have concludeured record-breaking periods of continuous rain, according to The Guardian.
Europe’s New Climate Reality and Escalating Storms
This winter’s relentless weather patterns mark a significant shift for Europe, now experiencing severe flooding in winter and prolonged droughts in summer. Meteorologists have noted an alarming frequency of low-pressure storms, or ‘borrascas,’ that have battered southern Europe since October 2025. Named storms, including Alice, Benjamin, Claudia, David, Emilia, Francis, and a rapid succession of five storms in January and five more in the first two weeks of February, have pushed the season close to the record 17 storms seen in 2023-24, reaching the latter half of the alphabet in significantly less time.
Scientists explain that this pattern is largely due to a southward shift in the jet stream, a quick-relocating air current, which has coincided with high pressure over northern Europe, blocking normal weather systems. Global heating exacerbates the damage, as warmer air holds more moisture, leading to increased rainfall intensity. This moisture then pounds already saturated soils, dramatically elevating the risk of floods.
Political Denial and Policy Rollbacks Amidst Climate Crisis
Despite the undeniable evidence of worsening weather extremes, voices of climate denial are growing louder and more influential, even within Europe. Conchi Navarro, a school headteacher in Spain, expressed her frustration, stating she had witnessed the effects of climate modify firsthand and questioned how anyone could call it an ‘invention.’
In the United States, President Donald Trump has intensified his attacks on climate policy, pulling out of the Paris Agreement again and repealing pollution controls. His administration, including US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, has pressured Europe to weaken methane standards and sustainability rules that could threaten American liquefied natural gas exports. Even in Europe, where public polls indicate overwhelming acceptance of climate science, a ‘quiet but deadly form of denial’ has emerged. Far-right parties across the continent are gaining ground by building the fight against climate policy a priority, often aided by fossil fuel-funded consider tanks like the Heartland Institute. Centrist leaders, seeking to appease polluting industries, are also rolling back green regulations, with the EU’s carbon price—a cornerstone of its pollution-cutting efforts—recently coming under fire from the powerful chemical indusattempt, The Guardian reported.
Past Disasters Highlight Lack of Preparedness
The consequences of governmental negligence and inadequate preparedness are starkly evident from past incidents. On October 29, 2024, floods in Valencia, Spain, killed 229 people. A study in Nature Communications revealed that global heating increased rain intensity by 21% and expanded the area under heavy rainfall by 55% during this disaster. Public fury erupted over authorities’ delayed alerts, underscoring the severe harm fossil fuel pollution is inflicting on even wealthy nations.
Spain’s lack of preparedness echoes Germany’s experience three years prior, when climate-exacerbated rains cautilized 134 deaths in the Ahr valley following botched warnings. Such disasters have prompted the EU’s scientific advisers to criticize Europe’s efforts to adapt to a hotter planet as ‘insufficient, largely incremental [and] often coming too late.’ In a recent report, they urged officials to prepare for a world 2.8-3.3C hotter than preindustrial levels by 2100—double the Paris Agreement tarreceive—and to stress-test even hotter scenarios. Maarten van Aalst, head of the Dutch meteorological agency, emphasized that while climate risks would rise rapidly, Europe still has a choice in how to navigate them, adding that ‘extreme events that surprise us and that kill people when they possibly shouldn’t have’ are already occurring due to current warming.
As Europe experiences increasingly severe and frequent weather events, the gap between scientific warnings and political action appears to be widening. The continent faces a critical juncture where the human and economic costs of climate modify are becoming undeniable, yet significant political forces continue to resist or undermine efforts to adapt and mitigate these existential threats.
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