London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

How Europeans saw climate change in July

How Europeans saw climate change in July

July was a month of heat across much of Europe and our readers felt it.

From Spain to Albania, people were wiping the sweat from their eyes to read POLITICO’s coverage of a heat wave that gripped much of the Continent. Scientists were unequivocal: The heat was made worse by climate change and there is more to come.

Every month we ask readers across the bloc to tell us how they are experiencing Europe’s changing climate.


A train ride through Spain’s wildfires


The heat in Madrid meant Francisco Seoane Pérez hadn’t been able to sleep.

He calls the city where he teaches journalism the “Iberian Dubai.” It is “unlivable” in summer, he told POLITICO. So, during Spain’s unrelentingly hot July — which broke Madrid’s heat record — Pérez took the train home to Galicia in the northwest.

The train rolled along in the early morning, and an exhausted Pérez drifted in and out of sleep. “Then I overhear this chatter on the coach. And then I opened my eyes widely,” he said. Pérez saw flames in the darkness, closer and closer to the tracks. Then the train stopped.

“This was the first time that I experienced how wildfires can spread,” said Pérez, who grabbed a few seconds of footage on his phone, then watched in horror as flames raced toward them. “That’s when I realized, ‘Oh, my goodness, so these reports that I’ve heard that some firefighters are suddenly, in a matter of seconds, circled by fire. This is true.’”

As the train passed out of danger, a passenger near Pérez said: “This is a death scenario that I hadn’t foreseen.”

The fires were driven by heat worsened by climate change. But asked whether the fate of the planet was on his mind as the flames moved closer to the train before it moved to safety, Pérez said: “The only thing you think of is about saving your own life, I guess. So there’s no time for an elaborated sense of thinking of climate change when you are facing this.”

That “was a later thought,” compounded when he uploaded the footage from his short but terrifying experience to Twitter, where it has 2.5 million views.


The video touched a nerve and the journalism professor has a theory about why. “As compared to some other footage, where you can see an unknown village being burned to the ashes, in this case, you have a banal and everyday situation that almost any urbanite in Europe can relate to,” he said. “We were on a train, and then suddenly, the wildfires came along.”

That immediacy affected how he and people who watched his footage perceive climate change, Pérez said. “It’s a symbol of, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is it. It’s real. It’s here.’”


Shifting seasons


An Italian reader, Francesco Pistocchini, says hot temperatures are occurring earlier. “June was like July in terms of heat” in Milan, where he lives, he said.

“It doesn’t take great observation skills to see that, after months without rain and snow in northern Italy, rivers and mountains looked the same in June as they normally do at the end of August,” he added.

Erjon Bacaj, from Albania’s capital Tirana, has observed similar changes. Over the last 20 years, he said, “winters have become milder and shorter while summers are getting hotter and longer.”

He added: “Summer in these two decades has broken records … recording high temperatures of up to 39 degrees even in mountainous areas such as Peshkopia, Kukësi and Hasi,” located in Albania’s northeast.

Luis de Pinedo Arroyo from Spain said climate patterns were shifting in his country, too.

“Extremely heavy rains and floodings are becoming more frequent in different areas of Spain,” he said. “Droughts are taking place more frequently in unusual moments” — like in fall or spring — “and heatwaves are becoming longer and harder.”

Like Pérez, he said the heat was affecting his sleep: “Regarding heatwaves, this year is becoming one of the hardest and is making me suffer from insomnia.”


Staying inside


Rachel Allen, who lives in Rome, said the heat left her stuck inside with the shutters closed. “I can’t go outside … my dog can’t go out but sits crying at the window when I open the shades for all of 20 minutes,” she wrote, adding it was affecting her mental health.

Playground in the scorching sun in Madrid


Analia Garcia from Madrid sent a picture of a nearby playground under the scorching sun: “There are no kids playing.”

Further north, too, people also kept off the street to escape the heat wave.

“Many people are shutting themselves in, and the cities and town are noticeably more empty, with many seeking refuge in cool houses,” said Maximilian de Pauw Gerlings from Luxembourg. “Those with warm homes, however, do the best they can to find relief in shopping malls, cafés and other similar establishments.”

The Grand Duchy’s public transport system — free of charge for all — had also come under strain, he said. “Trains and buses are all arriving a bit later than they generally do and bus stops are filled with people pushed to the very brink of consciousness by the heat.”

There’s growing concern for how the country will cope in the future, de Pauw Gerlings added. “The most worrying part of this scene to most residents is the fact that Luxembourg is far from the hardest hit by this crisis, with temperatures hitting ‘only’ 37C at their peak, and yet is still under significant duress, leaving many wondering how we will manage once temperatures inevitably progress into the 40s,” he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×