On the heels of Venice Climate Week and London Climate Action Week in June, both of which were focused on spurring urgent global action to address climate change, the critical theme for July across the globe is heat.

The acceleration of extreme heat events around the globe, and the associated intense fires, widespread smoke, and lingering haze, are the latest highly visible – and highly destructive – signals of emissions-driven warming. 

Earlier this month, as I smelled the smoke and experienced the haze from massive fires burning hundreds of miles away in Canada – not for the first time – it was hard not to feel that such impacts were becoming normal. 

At the same time, I had the disturbing feeling that while millions across the U.S. are experiencing the smoke from these fires, collectively we are not really seeing it for the critical signal that it is, and therefore we are not coalescing around appropriate action.

I also reflected on the extreme heat and fires plaguing Europe for the last two months, drawing on excellent reporting from The New York Times, some of which is detailed below.  Taken together, these articles are extremely valuable in showing the extreme – and highly abnormal – nature of rising temperatures.

Recent coverage, key signals

At the end of May, The New York Times (NYT) reported that the early heat wave that month had “the fingerprints of climate change all over it.”  David Gelles noted that temperatures in some parts of France had reached more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, while London set a record for May at 95 degrees and Oxford reached its highest temperature ever. 

Gelles also noted that Europe is warming faster than any other continent, in tandem with global temperatures that continue to rise rapidly, “fueled by the unrelenting burning of fossil fuels.”  And he provided a poignant comment by the UN’s Simon Stiell, who stated that Europe’s early heat wave “is a brutal reminder of the spiraling impacts of the climate crisis” and “the main culprit is the world’s addiction to burning coal, oil and gas, and destroying forests.”

On June 23rd, Chico Harlan of the NYT pointed to “Sahara-like conditions” in Western Europe, noting that temperatures were 25 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.  He added that “as greenhouse gas emissions rise, the pace of heat waves keeps accelerating.”  And he provided a powerful example, noting that “Of France’s 52 official heat waves since 1947, half have occurred in the past 16 years.” 

Harlan also pointed to the human cost of heat waves, citing the World Health Organization’s estimate that “more than 200,000 people across Europe have died from heat over the past four years.”

On June 24th, the NYT’s Raymond Zhong explored why Europe is the world’s fastest-warming planet, citing Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service data in noting that average temperatures there “have climbed by roughly 1 degree Fahrenheit, or .56 degrees Celsius, per decade since the mid-1990s, more than double the pace of warming worldwide.”  He followed with a key point: “Emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from human activity are driving the planet’s long-term increase in temperatures, which is helping hot spells reach ever greater extremes of severity and duration.”

Along with a description of factors that are specific to Europe’s warming, Zhong spoke with climate scientist Lizzie Kendon of the University of Bristol, who noted that “we expect increasing temperatures and the breaking of temperature records due to climate change.”  But beyond the unfortunate reality of such expectations, Kendon added that what she finds “extraordinary” are the margins by which prior temperature records are being exceeded. 

Colleagues in London shared on-the-ground updates with me regarding June’s excessive heat, with one individual feeling that the extreme weather events “are starting to become our standard summer reality.”  

She pointed to the irony of the June heat wave coinciding with London Climate Action Week, citing temperatures in excess of 37 degrees Celsius for three consecutive days and the issuance of only their second “red warning” in history.  She also highlighted the negative impacts for agriculture as the spike in heat essentially “baked the moisture right out of the soil” while crops were developing. 

Another UK colleague pointed to the infrastructure challenges associated with the excessive heat, stating that upon returning from a trip he found Paddington Station to be “total chaos” with a departures board that “read like a disaster movie” due to the high numbers of service cancellations. 

In early July, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) cited monthly data from Copernicus in noting that June 2026 was the hottest June ever recorded for Western Europe in addition to being the second warmest June globally. 

The WMO noted that the June heat wave “broke monthly and all-time temperature records across several European countries and contributed to severe health impacts, including heat-related deaths” while fueling drought conditions and wildfires.  Further, the monthly average sea-surface temperature was the highest for June as well.

On July 8th, the NYT also referenced the Copernicus data, noting that June was “1.39 degrees Celsius, or 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than it was at the start of the industrial era.”  The article included comments from Samantha Burgess, climate scientist with Copernicus, who stated that together, recent temperature records “reflect a climate system continuing to accumulate heat” and “the result is increasingly intense heat waves, a persistently warm ocean, and growing risks for people, ecosystems, and infrastructure across Europe and beyond.”

And continuing with the theme of new records, the article noted that France recorded its hottest day for any month, for three consecutive days, while the total number of heat-related deaths in France in June may have exceeded 2,700.

In mid-July, in addition to searing temperatures, large swaths of the U.S. began to experience the smoke and smell associated with wildfires in Canada, with more than 130 wildfires burning and driving air quality warnings, road closures, and community evacuations. 

The NYT covered the scale of the smoke, noting that it stretched from the Upper Midwest and Canada and into New York City and New England, while air quality readings reached dangerous levels in multiple cities (it is notable that the city of Toronto’s air quality was temporarily on par with the worst in the world).

In terms of impact, The Washington Post noted that at least 70 individuals perished in the U.S. as a result of heat domes in July, with that number likely to rise going forward. 

Beyond the U.S. and Canada, wildfires resulting from excessive heat and drought are having devastating impact in Europe.  The NYT reported that temperatures in parts of Spain and France are expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius (or 104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the final days of July – exacerbating the wildfires that have burned more than 300,000 acres in those countries and destroyed several hundred structures.  The authors noted that the fires are “highlighting the challenge faced by Europe as summers grow increasingly hot and wildfires become more widespread.”

NYT reporters Mark Landler and Chico Harlan captured the situation in Europe brilliantly as follows: “Ravenous fires.  Searing heat waves.  Freakish storms.  The summer of 2026 has already shattered meteorological records in several European countries.  On a continent that has weathered centuries of upheaval – ruinous wars, deadly pandemics – it is the weather itself that now has Europe feeling close to a breaking point.” 

They highlighted the severe human toll of the heat and fires, including the displacement of 300,000 individuals in France and Spain and a heat-related death toll of 10,000 across Europe in June alone.

And they included a powerful warning from Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, who stated that Europe is “ground zero” when it comes to the impacts of climate change, and that “2026 is just the beginning, it will inevitably get worse…It will get worse and worse and worse to the point where, I’m afraid, we’ll be passing the limits of adaptation.”

Rockstrom correctly noted that the situation in France and Spain amplifies the need for Europe to increase its ambition level toward net-zero policies rather than reducing it.

His message cannot be ignored.

Key takeaways for action (asking What if?)

The extreme heat across the globe in recent weeks, and the accompanying fires, smoke, and haze, are key signals of the manner in which we are transgressing planetary boundaries through greenhouse gas emissions. 

We must not normalize these extremes.  We should instead recognize that they are in fact abnormal, and reflective of a dangerous pathway beyond humanity’s safe operating space, as the Stockholm Resilience Centre so effectively reminds us. 

I am left with a number of key takeaways.

First, acceleration and intensity.  The speed with which temperatures are rising across the globe, especially in Western Europe, is hugely concerning, as is the extreme nature of the heat events. 

For example, in their recent article, Landler and Harlan noted that the European continent is 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it was just three decades ago, adding that such a jump is significant enough to be noticeable in a single generation.  Further, they added that as of late July, France had recorded a total of 53 heat waves since 1947 – with 28 (more than half!) occurring in the last 15 years. 

In addition, they stated that Bordeaux (a region currently threatened by wildfires) had never experienced a temperature above 39 degrees Celsius (102.2 degrees Fahrenheit) between 1921 and 2000, while in the summer of 2026 Bordeaux has reached that mark eight times. 

Last, France experienced its hottest day ever recorded in late June, with a national average temperature of 30 degrees Celsius (the city of Nantes reached 42 degrees Celsius, more than 107 degrees Fahrenheit).  

Second, serious impact.  We are all seeing the impact of emissions-driven extreme weather, including canceled events, revised work schedules, disruptions to critical infrastructure and business operations, degraded air quality, evacuations and migration, massive numbers of heat-related deaths, destruction of forests and biodiversity, damage to crops and threats to food security, and much more.

The environmental, social, and financial costs of warming are enormous.  For example, a recent study showed that June’s heat wave resulted in 24 million lost working hours in the UK and a cost of 1.1 billion British pounds.  Another study (referenced here by the World Economic Forum) found the cost of extreme weather events for the years 2000 to 2019 to be $143 billion, which equates to $16 million per hour, and the cost of climate change by 2050 is likely to be far higher. 

Third, connectivity and risk.  The widespread smoke and haze from the Canadian wildfires is just one indicator of what we already know: climate change impacts are not constrained by national borders.  Emissions-driven warming affects all countries, particularly many less developed regions.  Deforestation, species destruction, melting ice caps, ocean acidification, and other planetary transgressions affect all of humanity. 

Fourth, the need for urgent collaboration.  The accelerating pace and intensity of warming, and its costly impacts, present a level of existential risk that requires an unparalleled level of global collaboration at unprecedented scale – particularly with a focus on the food-water-energy nexus.  We know this.  Ideally, such collaboration should present an opportunity for humanity-saving innovations and reduced geopolitical tension.  The fact that we continue to subsidize fossil fuel development over renewables (or hinder the development of renewables, as is currently the case in the U.S.) is unconscionable.

Fifth, the need for a reframe on warming.  The nations of the world have not been acting with sufficient rigor to address the existing Paris Agreement goal from ten years ago, while we are already on the cusp of the 1.5 degree Celsius marker.  We have projections for where the global average temperature could go, but we need greater focus on the fact that (as we are seeing today) the rate of increase may occur more quickly than anticipated (and more quickly than mitigation efforts can address).  We need a greater “What if?” mindset regarding the level and speed of increased warming to spur greater action, coupled with greater communication on the speed with which warming can be mitigated with the proper focus.

In sum, emissions-driven warming is impacting all of humanity today.  There is no ignoring it.  We can all see the signals, and we are getting warnings regarding the trajectory of global temperatures.   

We ignore these signals at our own collective peril.

As we learned at Venice Climate Week, we are all in the same boat.

The extreme heat, fires, smoke and haze that we are seeing across the world today are not normal, and we must not acquiesce to normalizing them, for that only cements inaction. 

And inaction isn’t an option.