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At least nine nations in northern Africa and southern Europe are struggling to contain blazes. Meanwhile, policymakers are still allowing corporate interests to pour more fossil fuels onto the raging fire of climate chaos.
Algeria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, and Turkey.
What do these nine countries have in common? All of them are currently battling deadly infernos made worse by the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
And yet, governments worldwide continue to greenlight new coal, oil, and gas production—exacerbating planet-heating pollution and ensuring that heatwaves, wildfires, and other extreme weather disasters will increase in frequency, duration, and intensity.
In Algeria, roughly 8,000 firefighters on Tuesday struggled to control conflagrations burning across 15 provinces in the country's drought-stricken north, where temperatures reached 122°F. The fires, which prompted the evacuation of more than 1,500 people, have killed at least 34 individuals so far.
"Witnesses described fleeing walls of flames that raged 'like a blowtorch,' destroying homes and coastal resorts and turning vast forest areas into blackened wastelands," The Guardian reported.
Amid heavy winds, two border crossings with neighboring Tunisia have been closed, as authorities there grapple with fires burning in the northwestern region of Tabarka.
In Croatia, firefighters on Tuesday worked to contain blazes spreading just south of Dubrovnik, a major tourist destination. The task has been made more difficult by fierce winds in the area, which are keeping firefighting aircraft grounded.
In France, hundreds of firefighters were mobilized Tuesday in an attempt to control wildfires near the Nice international airport and on the outskirts of Arles.
In Greece, more than 20,000 people have been evacuated in recent days from homes and hotels as wildfires rage on the island of Rhodes.
At least three people have died so far, including two pilots whose firefighting plane crashed on Tuesday.
Italy has been pummeled by a combination of storms in the north, which killed at least seven people on Tuesday, and wildfires in the south, which have also led to multiple deaths.
"While the north was drenched, the heatwave across the south persisted, with temperatures of 47.6°C (117°F) recorded in the eastern Sicilian city of Catania on Monday," The Guardian reported. "The bodies of two people in [their] 70s were found in a house destroyed by the flames, while an 88-year-old woman was found near the Sicilian city of Palermo."
"Italian firefighters said they tackled nearly 1,400 fires between Sunday and Tuesday, including 650 in Sicily and 390 in Calabria, the southern mainland region where a bedridden 98-year-old man was killed as fire consumed his home," the newspaper noted.
On social media, Sicily's civil protection minister Nello Musumeci wrote: "We are experiencing in Italy one of the most complicated days in recent decades—rainstorms, tornadoes, and giant hail in the north, and scorching heat and devastating fires in the center and south. The climate upheaval that has hit our country demands of us all... a change of attitude."
In Portugal, hundreds of firefighters scrambled Tuesday to extinguish blazes near Cascais, another popular tourist destination. The country is already hard-hit by drought, and wind gusts are accelerating the spread of flames.
A fast-moving wildfire in the heart of the Spanish island of Gran Canaria prompted authorities to order evacuations, close roads, and deploy dozens of firefighters and several helicopters on Tuesday.
In Turkey, officials on Tuesday evacuated a hospital and a dozen homes in the coastal town of Kemer, where firefighters continued to battle flames.
Europe is the fastest-warming continent on the planet, which has already endured 1.3°C of temperature rise since the late 1800s. July has seen the hottest day and week in recorded history and is on pace to be the hottest month ever. 2023 will likely go down as the hottest year ever, though the potential record is not expected to last long because newly arrived El Niño conditions are projected to make 2024 even hotter.
Last year's brutal heatwaves killed more than 61,000 people in Europe alone. Existing policies put the world on track for up to 2.9°C of temperature rise by the end of the century, prompting United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to call business-as-usual a civilizational "death sentence."
"Most people still don't know what peril they are in," climate scientist Peter Kalmus tweeted last week. "This will be the coolest summer for the rest of your life, and that shouldn't be just a meme—it should be actually terrifying. The only path out of this heat nightmare is to end fossil fuels ASAP."
"Keep in mind that climate catastrophe is caused by those who run the fossil fuel industry, who have lied and blocked action for decades," he added. "It will get far, far worse until we stop them. We can stop them, but we need to get angry, take risks, and do it!"
"I hope that some talks are going on, otherwise we are inching toward the Third World War," said President Zoran Milanovic.
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic became the latest critic to condemn the decision of Western countries, including the United States, to send dozens of tanks to Ukraine to help fight the war against Russia, warning that continued military escalation will not help bring the conflict to an end.
"I am against sending any lethal arms there," Milanovic said at a press conference. "It prolongs the war."
The Biden administration last week announced that it will send more than 30 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, while German officials confirmed they will supply Ukrainian soldiers with 14 Leopard 2 tanks. Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom have already dispatched tanks to the country, which was invaded nearly a year ago by Russian forces.
Conservative British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said last week that the continued military support for Ukraine will "ensure Ukraine wins this war and secures a lasting peace," but peace advocates have long said that countries including the U.S. must prioritize promoting diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia.
"What is the goal of this war? A war against a nuclear power that is at war in another country? Is there a conventional way to defeat such a country?"
The Stop the War Coalition in the U.K. announced an upcoming demonstration last week following the announcement by the U.S. and Germany, saying, "Arming Ukraine and sending tanks is a step further away from negotiation."
In October, progressives in the U.S. House said in a letter to Biden that "the alternative to diplomacy is protracted war" before distancing themselves from the statement under pressure. The White House has resisted calls to aggressively push for peaceful negotiations even from Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark Milley.
Milanovic's most recent comments follow his accusation earlier this month that the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO) are fighting a "proxy war against Russia through Ukraine."
"What is the goal of this war?" Milanovic asked on Monday. "A war against a nuclear power that is at war in another country? Is there a conventional way to defeat such a country?"
He also predicted that European countries will "pay the price" for becoming militarily involved in the way and that Europe will ultimately pour more resources into the effort to end the war through military might.
"America pays the least," he said. "Not a single American tank will go to Ukraine in a year. Only German tanks will be sent there."
Last week, he expressed hope in a television interview that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are ongoing.
"Supplies of Western tanks to Ukraine will extend the war. If America and Russia don't agree, and that's not in sight so far, the war won't be over," he toldN1. "I hope that some talks are going on, otherwise we are inching toward the Third World War."
Human rights defenders and aid organizations are issuing dire warnings this week after witnessing the hellish conditions of an encampment of stranded refugees in the freezing forests of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
An envoy of officials on Tuesday visited the camp known as Vucjak--situated approximately five miles from the nearby border with Croatia in a forest that has grown atop a former landfill--where they saw hundreds of migrants huddled in leaking and drafty tents as temperatures in the region have dropped to freezing or below.
"Vucjak must be shut down today," said Dunja Mijatovic, commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe and a member of the delegation. "Otherwise the people here will start dying."
Mijatovic said that as a citizen of Bosnia, she was "ashamed" of how the refugees were being treated, decried the conditions of the refugee camp as "not for human beings," and called for immediate relief for those languishing there.
\u201cIt is hard to express just how harsh the winter in #Bosnia-#Herzegovina can be, especially for those who've fled their homes with only the most meagre of possessions - "'People are not animals'; stranded #migrants freeze in #Bosnian forest". https://t.co/6p4PjwInu7\u201d— Ian Bancroft (@Ian Bancroft) 1575457686
According to Reuters:
Bosnia is struggling to deal with an upsurge in migrant numbers since Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia closed their borders against undocumented immigration. The migrants hope to get to wealthy western Europe and find work there.
Some lacked warm clothes and were wrapped in blankets, some traipsed through the snow and mud in flip-flops to collect firewood. One man brushed snow from the roof of his tent to prevent it collapsing.
Al-Jazeera also reported Tuesday from the Vucjak camp:
An 24-year-old Afghan man identified as Mauloddin, who set off from his war-torn homeland more than three years ago to seek refuge in Europe, told Reuters, "You see... it's very cold weather, (there is) no sleeping, no food."
"People are people," he added, "not animals."
Rezwanullay Niazy, also a 24-year-old Afghan, said: "We spent all our money... We came close to Europe, and now they closed the Croatian and Slovenian borders. When we go there they strike us, they hit us."