Heatwave blanketing Olympics ‘impossible’ without climate change

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🗞️ Driving the news: A severe heatwave across the Mediterranean, affecting the Paris Olympics, has been linked to climate change, with scientists stating it would have been 3°C cooler without fossil fuel emissions

🔭 The context: Athletes in Paris have resorted to cooling measures as temperatures exceeded 35°C
• The World Weather Attribution analysis highlights the exacerbation of heat due to human activities, with similar heat impacting countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, and Morocco, causing fatalities and forest fires

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: This event underscores the significant impact of fossil fuel emissions on global temperatures, contributing to more frequent and intense heatwaves, which are the deadliest extreme weather events intensified by climate change

⏭️ What's next: Extreme weather events, including heatwaves, are expected to become more common, occurring potentially every decade, as global temperatures continue to rise

💬 One quote: “Yesterday, climate change crashed the Olympics,” said Friederike Otto, climate scientist and co-founder of World Weather Attribution

📈 One stat: In Morocco, 21 people died as temperatures soared to 48°C

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