00:00In 2025, Europe had a record year for wildfires, sea temperature highs and heat waves.
00:07The findings of a report by the World Meteorological Organization and the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
00:15Now, at least 95% of Europe experienced above average temperatures last year.
00:21Sea surface temperatures also hit record highs.
00:25More than a million hectares of land were burnt by wildfires, an area larger than Cyprus and the biggest annual
00:32total on record.
00:34Parts of Scandinavia experienced their most extreme heat wave on record last July, with temperatures inside the Arctic Circle hitting
00:4230 degrees.
00:43Iceland recorded its second largest glacier loss since records began.
00:49Now, Samantha Burgess is the strategic lead for climate in the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
00:54Joining us now, Samantha, thanks very much for your time.
00:57We get these reports periodically, and they always sound very dire.
01:01We keep getting these warnings.
01:02So what is most significant and noteworthy from this latest batch of data?
01:08Yes, you're right.
01:09So we release these reports regularly.
01:12And I think one of the key messages is that these temperatures and climate indicators covered in the report are
01:20deeply historically unusual.
01:22And the scale of that change is growing with every single passing year.
01:27Why is Europe warming faster than any other continent?
01:33So the global average rate of warming is about a quarter of a degree per decade.
01:40And Europe is warming at approximately twice that, at over half a degree per decade.
01:45And there's a number of reasons why Europe is warming faster.
01:49One is our proximity to the Arctic.
01:52The second one is the dynamics of the atmosphere that are changing with a warmer atmosphere.
01:58The third one is the land area is warming faster than the ocean, and there is a lot of land
02:04in the European domain.
02:06And the fourth one is really looking at how our reflectivity is changing or albedo.
02:13So we are losing a lot of snow and ice and cloud cover.
02:20So Europe is less ice covered and less cloudy than it used to be.
02:25And when we have those white, bright surfaces, we're reflecting more sunshine or solar radiation back into space.
02:33So because we've got clearer skies and less snow and ice, we're seeing extra radiation hitting Europe, which is warming
02:40us up faster.
02:41The crisis in the Middle East has shown us just how dependent we still are on fossil fuels.
02:48Are we still decades away from wind and solar and other clean energy being our main sources of power?
02:54No, not at all.
02:56And that's one of the exciting bright spots of the report, that we look at the electricity generation from renewable
03:05energy sources.
03:06And for the third year in a row, the energy generated for electricity from renewable energy has exceeded fossil fuel
03:17sources.
03:18So renewable energy across Europe is at over 46 percent, with over 30 percent coming from wind and solar.
03:27And that's a combination of the weather dynamics that we're having.
03:31So how windy and sunny it is, but also increased installed capacity.
03:36So we are seeing that we are generating more electricity from renewable energy sources, which is great for our transition.
03:45So that's good news, at least.
03:47But overall, what is the big story that all this data is telling us about our general direction of travel?
03:54Yeah, so it's not good news.
03:57And there are extremes from the Mediterranean to the Arctic.
04:00So we had our Europe's second longest heat wave on record, which was 21 days around the Arctic circle.
04:10And temperatures around the Arctic circle got to above 30 degrees.
04:15On the other end of the continent, in the Mediterranean, we saw places across Spain and Portugal with 50 to
04:24100 days more heat stress days than average.
04:28Wildfires were particularly exceptional as well, where we had over a million hectares burnt across Europe with the highest emissions.
04:37And it was also one of the three driest years for soil moisture since 1992.
04:43And in May, we had 35 percent of Europe was in an extreme agricultural drought.
04:48So it's really a combination of all these factors that are ringing the alarm bells.
04:52Thank you so much for that update.
04:54Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate in the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
