Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll talk about the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events due to global warming.

We'll analyse risks and impacts and try to spell out three possible scenarios for the future.

Stay with us.

Deadly floods in Germany and Belgium, uncontrolled wildfires in Greece, Portugal, Italy and France. Extreme weather events like this shook

Europe in 2021, but unfortunately they're not one-off incidents.

And scientists have linked these increases to the human-induced global warming.

Earth's average surface air temperature has increased by about 1 degrees Celsius since 1900.

And this figure will reach 1.5 degrees before 2040.

And there's an even more frightening estimate.

Assuming we implement all our current climate commitments, our planet will be 2.4 degrees warmer by the end of the century.

If we don't, it could be more than 3 degrees Celsius.

And with global temperatures rising, we will not only have to deal with more extreme weather

events, but also face the long-term impacts of a changing climate.

Beyond wildfires and floods, violent storms, even hurricanes, prolonged droughts and extreme heatwaves are Europe's main extreme weather events, and their

impact depends largely on what happens and especially where it happened. For instance, when we

have heat waves hitting major parts of the continent or floods and landslides occurring in cities,

the human and economic costs are of an entirely different magnitude.

The total cost of the July 2021 floods, for instance, is about 46 billion euros,

and heat waves are by far the deadliest event.

Yes, they are, but beyond the direct human and material losses caused by extreme weather events,

there are innumerable other

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