Droughts and fires to plague EU summers

Europe will face more summers of droughts and forest fires unless it does more to combat global warming, according to the European Commission and conservation group WWF.

A report from WWF published last week (13 July) says five EU countries have already been hit by drought this year and that the problem will become more common in the future. Drought-linked forest fires in Portugal meanwhile have killed six people this month.

"The trend towards more droughts and forest fires is of course linked to climate change," said a Commission spokeswoman. "Extreme weather events like these argue the case for strong climate change mitigation measures."

Francesca Antonelli of WWF Mediterranean said that the increase in European droughts and forest fires was mainly due to climate change. But she explained that EU support for land irrigation under the common agricultural policy (CAP) and population increases in some parts of the southern Mediterranean were exacerbating the problem.

Antonelli said the EU needed to rethink its whole approach to managing drought. Tough climate change measures, water management and irrigation problems should move up the political agenda not only when it is hot, she said.

"Countries now have a reactive approach to droughts. When droughts happen they reduce water consumption, but we should not even get to the situation where droughts occur."

The Commission in January published legislation to manage floods, another extreme weather event.

But droughts and forest fires are even harder to manage, according to the Commission spokeswoman, since they can easily affect larger areas than a flood.

An emergency assistance programme managed by the Commission's environment depart-ment, the Civil Defence Mechanism, last year co-ordinated fire-fighting aeroplanes and helicopters from five member states to deal with forest fires in Portugal. A Commission official said Lisbon had not asked for more help so far this year.

Europe will face more summers of droughts and forest fires unless it does more to combat global warming, according to the European Commission and conservation group WWF.