Damascus-SANA
Global warming and climate change have always been a global concern for humanity and an issue through which European countries seek to win over their people without being able to avoid their impact on various aspects of life and production sectors, which large parts of Europe faced this summer through record temperatures that caused massive fires and low water levels in many from the rivers.
These changes have become a reality in the old continent after recording record temperatures and severe drought caused by the lack of rain and a decrease in the level of snowfall in a way that has not been witnessed for centuries, which the United Nations has warned of, stressing that the global drought may affect three quarters of the Earth’s population by 2050, while Other reports have warned that 45 percent of the European bloc, about half of it, is under a severe drought and is classified next in the danger category.
Europe is under siege from the harshest drought in 500 years, even worse than 2018. Wide media headlines are causing panic among Europeans, with hundreds of deaths likely to be increased due to record temperatures, especially since buildings were not designed in a way to withstand temperatures exceeding 25 degrees Celsius amid fears that Climate change is exacerbating an increase of about 60 percent of infectious diseases and reduced yields in France, Romania, Spain, Portugal and Italy, especially with the proportion of economic losses in the European Union and the United Kingdom so far rising to 9 billion euros annually due to drought.
All of this came to add to the recent problems of the industrialized European countries, especially after the European Union sanctions against Russia because of its military operation in Ukraine, which backfired, and the economic problems of the United States, Britain and the European Union included a sharp rise in fuel and food prices.
Pictures of environmental disasters raised the alarm in Europe and globally, through a violent wave of forest fires in France and the declaration of emergency and drought in Britain, with the Thames drying rate reaching its highest levels and with a significant decrease in the level of the Rhine River in Germany, which threatens its vital supplies and leads to a slowdown in its economic growth and drying out of the soil With a wide area extending from eastern Hungary and Slovakia to western Ukraine and Romania, negative anomalies in soil moisture rates in western Poland and a severe deficit in soil moisture in the southern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula.
Italy was the most affected, with its longest river (Po) facing the highest level of severe drought, and the water level in its largest lake, Lake Garda, has fallen to nearly its lowest level ever, while the volumes of reservoir water in Spain are 31 percent less than the average recorded in ten The amount of water needed to produce hydroelectric power is half the average of the previous seven years, and Switzerland has sent military helicopters to airlift water to thirsty cows, pigs and goats in the country's alpine meadows.
According to the British newspaper The Independent, the summer of 2022 witnessed a sharp decline in energy production from hydraulic sources that depend on water flow as a result of rainfall, while companies producing energy from hydraulic sources in Europe faced a severe crisis as a result of a severe drought, and power plants were affected through wind turbines amid threats Drought could affect the production of food, energy, drinking water and wildlife.
Ali Suleiman
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