The Amsterdammer

News reporter Toyah Höher reflects on the “era of global boiling” announced last summer, noting that the Netherlands is not exempted from the dangers of climate change.

Amsterdammers are likely to remember the past summer as gray, wet and gloomy. But while northern Europe was battered by torrential rain, catastrophic floods and intense summer storms, much of the south of the continent spent the summer battling wildfires and enduring temperatures above 45°C. 

Reports of how summers are getting hotter may start sounding like a broken record, but the stakes are only rising: July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. June was similarly the hottest of its kind, and powerful heatwaves continued into August. It was the “summer of hell” according to a Maltese resident without water and electricity.

Wildfires resulting from the relentless heat and dryness ravaged thousands of acres of land in Croatia, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal and Spain, prompting evacuations and official declarations of emergency. Towards the end of August, Greece faced the largest wildfire ever recorded in the European Union. According to the European Travel Commission, travel to the Mediterranean region has dropped 10% from last year. Instead, tourists may be opting for cooler destinations or traveling outside of peak seasons. For countries like Greece, for which tourism contributes ⅕ of GDP, these developments are particularly worrying. 

Besides natural devastation, high levels of heat cause dangerous stress to the body and are linked to an increase in fatal conditions such as heat stroke and heart attacks. Last year, more than 60,000 people in Europe died as a result of heatwaves, more than any year in recorded history. 

The heatwaves are brought on and exacerbated by high temperatures, warmer oceans, drought, and the return of El Niño, a recurring weather pattern in which the surface of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are unusually warm. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has confirmed that climate change increases the frequency and intensity of heatwaves. 

Dr. Roger Cremades, assistant professor and researcher at Wageningen University, tells the Amsterdammer that the return of El Niño in the summer of 2023 “shows that the scale of what is to come in terms of climate impacts has not been manifested yet.” More extreme events are to be expected “all across the EU,” in particular in the Mediterranean region, which is warming faster than most parts of the world. 

Dr. Cremades notes that globalization conveys the impacts of climate change beyond national borders: the impact of floods to major technological hubs and ports, for example, would disrupt supply chains and ripple across the global economy. He observes that “those living with less resources are likely to suffer more, which is a scary common trend with the Global South.”

And yet, the Global North, including the Netherlands, is not exempt. Dr. Cremades notes the 2021 flooding in Limburg, which resulted in damages of around 500 million Euros. The risks illuminated by this extreme weather have implications on how urban areas should be planned in the Netherlands. The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) reported on Oct. 9 that the Netherlands can expect more climate change-related heat, drought, and storms in the coming years. The KNMI’s Principal Director Maarten van Aalst noted that “last summer, everyone saw how severe weather extremes plagued countries all over the world. The Netherlands, too, must prepare for increasingly severe weather conditions.” 

Dr. Mendel Giezen, Associate Professor in Sustainable Urban Development and Planning at the University of Amsterdam, tells the Amsterdammer that the Netherlands is set to experience more extreme downpour and longer periods of drought. “A few years ago, it was a very dry summer. Boats couldn’t get through the river, for instance, or gardens couldn’t be watered, and nature areas can become really, really dry.”

Is the Netherlands prepared to deal with these scenarios? Dr. Cremades warns that Dutch cities are unprepared to adequately adapt to heat waves. According to Dr. Giezen, “it very much depends on how extreme climate change is going to get. There’s still some potential in raising the dikes and water management, and there’s quite a lot of preparation surrounding those aspects. But especially concerning issues of drought, I don’t think we’re as well prepared.”

Dr. Giezen observes that “water management is always quite a priority in this country, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Climate mitigation is more something I worry about. It’s clearly not been on the top of the minds of the last eight governments to do something about climate change. We are really lagging behind in the aspect of making an energy transition. So let’s hope the elections go well, and these kinds of issues are taken up.”

The heatwaves of this summer are considered extreme, providing a glimpse of what our future might look like. As POLITICO’s Zia Weise points out, they are in reality a very real display of our present, and, following current predictions, may in fact only represent a mild version of what lies ahead. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warns that “the era of global boiling has arrived.”