Last year was the hottest in history across Europe as temperature records were shattered by a series of extreme heatwaves, the European Union's satellite monitoring surface said Wednesday.
Overall, temperatures across Europe have been 2C hotter during the last five years than they were in the latter half of the 19th century, C3S's data showed. Some parts of Europe experienced periods up to 4C hotter than the historic baseline last year, and heatwaves -- notably in June and July -- saw temperature records shattered in France, Germany and Britain.
"The response to the COVID-19 crisis could exacerbate the climate crisis if bailouts of the fossil fuel industry and fossil-intensive sectors are not conditional on a transition to clean technologies," said Cameron Hepburn, director of the University of Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.