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The Summer That Broke Europe

Record heat and wildfires are devastating the continent, and scientists warn the climate crisis is getting worse.

Listen · 12:58 min

By Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer

I’m the editor of The World.

July 29, 2026, 4:58 p.m. ET

I’m writing this on another sweltering 33-degree day in London; at this point, they’ve almost started to feel routine. We’re watching wildfires consume hundreds of thousands of hectares across France and Spain. This year’s fire season is already breaking records, and it’s not over yet.

Europe has had a rough summer. A season that not so long ago was associated with holidays and relaxation doesn’t feel quite the same when thousands of excess deaths are being attributed to heat. Today, my colleagues Mark Landler, our Paris bureau chief, who’s been covering the fires in France, and Chico Harlan, our global climate correspondent, write about whether we’re witnessing a moment of reckoning for the continent and climate change.

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A very bad summer

By Mark Landler and Chico Harlan

Ravenous fires. Searing heat waves. Freakish storms. The summer of 2026 has already shattered meteorological records in several European countries. On a continent that has weathered centuries of upheaval — ruinous wars, deadly pandemics — it’s the weather that now has Europe feeling close to a breaking point.

It has displaced more than 300,000 people in France and Spain, where the largest fires in those countries’ modern histories have led to their largest peacetime evacuations. It has left millions desperate for relief from temperatures that routinely soar above 40 degrees Celsius.

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