Human-induced climate change made late June's record-shattering European heat approximately 16 times more likely, the World Weather Attribution initiative announced Tuesday, following a period when temperatures 1,500 metres above ground exceeded 18.5 degrees Celsius for the first time since records began in 1950. The event, which local reports say killed more than 10,000 people, saw surface temperatures surpass 43°C in France and 40°C in Hungary.
The financial toll on agriculture is now coming into focus, after earlier reports of severe crop stresses across Western Europe. Grain farmers across the EU and Britain lost an estimated €2 billion in revenue as roughly 9 million tonnes of crops were destroyed, according to industry group Coceral. Maize production forecasts have been cut from 57.2 million tonnes to 52.7 million tonnes, and France alone lost an estimated 3.4 million tonnes of maize worth €891 million.
The bloc and Britain are on track for their smallest harvest since 2018, with the lost output valued at roughly 5 percent of last year's production, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.