- Japan's top diplomat in China to address 'challenges'
- Thousands attend Christmas charity dinner in Buenos Aires
- Demand for Japanese content booms post 'Shogun'
- As India's Bollywood shifts, stars and snappers click
- Mystery drones won't interfere with Santa's work: US tracker
- Djokovic eyes more Slam glory as Swiatek returns under doping cloud
- Australia's in-form Head confirmed fit for Boxing Day Test
- Brazilian midfielder Oscar returns to Sao Paulo
- 'Wemby' and 'Ant-Man' to make NBA Christmas debuts
- US agency focused on foreign disinformation shuts down
- On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis launches holy Jubilee year
- 'Like a dream': AFP photographer's return to Syria
- Chiefs seek top seed in holiday test for playoff-bound NFL teams
- Panamanians protest 'public enemy' Trump's canal threat
- Cyclone death toll in Mayotte rises to 39
- Ecuador vice president says Noboa seeking her 'banishment'
- Leicester boss Van Nistelrooy aware of 'bigger picture' as Liverpool await
- Syria authorities say armed groups have agreed to disband
- Maresca expects Man City to be in title hunt as he downplays Chelsea's chancs
- South Africa opt for all-pace attack against Pakistan
- Guardiola adamant Man City slump not all about Haaland
- Global stocks mostly higher in thin pre-Christmas trade
- Bethlehem marks sombre Christmas under shadow of war
- 11 killed in blast at Turkey explosives plant
- Indonesia considers parole for ex-terror chiefs: official
- Postecoglou says Spurs 'need to reinforce' in transfer window
- Le Pen says days of new French govt numbered
- Villa boss Emery set for 'very difficult' clash with Newcastle
- Investors swoop in to save German flying taxi startup
- How Finnish youth learn to spot disinformation
- 12 killed in blast at Turkey explosives plant
- Panama leaders past and present reject Trump's threat of Canal takeover
- Hong Kong police issue fresh bounties for activists overseas
- Saving the mysterious African manatee at Cameroon hotspot
- India consider second spinner for Boxing Day Test
- London wall illuminates Covid's enduring pain at Christmas
- Poyet appointed manager at South Korea's Jeonbuk
- South Korea's opposition vows to impeach acting president
- The tsunami detection buoys safeguarding lives in Thailand
- Teen Konstas to open for Australia in Boxing Day India Test
- Asian stocks mostly up after US tech rally
- US panel could not reach consensus on US-Japan steel deal: Nippon
- The real-life violence that inspired South Korea's 'Squid Game'
- Blogs to Bluesky: social media shifts responses after 2004 tsunami
- Tennis power couple de Minaur and Boulter get engaged
- Supermaxi yachts eye record in gruelling Sydney-Hobart race
- Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupts, spewing columns of lava
- El Salvador Congress votes to end ban on metal mining
- Five things to know about Panama Canal, in Trump's sights
- NBA fines Minnesota guard Edwards $75,000 for outburst
Europe must do more against 'catastrophic' climate risks: EU
Europe could suffer "catastrophic" consequences from climate change if it fails to take urgent and decisive action to adapt to risks, a new EU analysis warned Monday.
Areas in southern Europe are most at risk, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said in its first report on the risks the continent faces from climate change, driven by human burning of fossil fuels.
The dangers include fires, water shortages and their effects on agricultural production, while low-lying coastal regions face threats of flooding, erosion and saltwater intrusion.
"Many of these risks have already reached critical levels and could become catastrophic without urgent and decisive action," the agency said.
That doesn't mean northern Europe is spared the negative impact, as floods in Germany and forest fires in Sweden have demonstrated in recent years.
"Extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and flooding, as experienced in recent years, will worsen in Europe even under optimistic global warming scenarios and affect living conditions throughout the continent," the EEA warned.
"These events are the new normal," EEA director Leena Yla-Mononen told a press briefing ahead of the report's release.
"It should be the wake-up call. The final wake-up call," she added.
The report lists 36 risks related to climate in Europe, 21 of which demand more immediate action and eight were "particularly urgent."
At the top of the list were risks to ecosystems, mainly relating to coastal and marine ones.
- Heatwaves -
For instance, the combination of heat waves as well as acidification and oxygen depletion of the seas and other human-caused factors such as pollution and eutrophication -- meaning an excess of nutrients which collapses aquatic ecosystems -- as well as fishing threaten marine ecosystems, the report noted.
"This can result in substantial biodiversity loss, including mass mortality events, and declines in ecosystem services," it said.
Hans-Martin Fussel, an expert on climate impacts at the EEA, pointed to specifically to the risk of recurring heatwaves, which can pose direct health risks and a threat to ecosystems.
"Often in Europe, they're combined with droughts. And this is a dangerous combination for infrastructure, for water supply," Fussel told AFP.
European governments and populations should unanimously recognise the risks and make it a priority to do more, faster, to prepare for them, according to the EEA.
"We need to do more, to have stronger policies," Yla-Mononen stressed.
Despite the alarm, the agency also acknowledged "considerable progress" made "in understanding the climate risks they are facing and preparing for them" among member states.
"However, implementing effective actions may have been hampered by things such as competing priorities, unclear risk ownership or insufficient investment funds," Fussel said.
On Tuesday, the European Commission is due to publish a report on climate risks in the EU.
"The timing is not a coincidence; indeed, we worked under considerable pressure to have our work finished as an input to their communication," Fussel said.
A.F.Rosado--PC