No way to cool down: energy poverty in the EU summer

As Summer 2024 envelopes the continent, it has once again brought disastrous storms, severe droughts, forest fires and other climate-related catastrophes.

Whilst terrifying heat waves might have become the new normal, we don't pay nearly enough attention to the burning issue of summer energy poverty.

This year, extreme heat arrived early. The first heat waves made their appearance in April when countries in southern and central Europe saw temperatures rise to 30 degrees.

Greece’s wildfire season started earlier than ever before in June. The country reported unbelievable temperatures of 44 degrees, and several tourists died of heat-related causes.

Since then, extreme temperatures have spread across Europe from the Balkans to Eastern Europe with severe impacts.

Over 100,000 citizens in Skopje were left without energy after a devastating storm, workers in Bucharest have been struggling to do their jobs and an entire lake dried up in Belgrade, all due to devastating heatwaves.

With Europe warming faster than other continents and Mediterranean temperatures rising 20 percent faster than the global average, these terrifying extremes are only going to become more common and their effects on people are only more devastating.

An increasing number of citizens will suffer the consequences with those who cannot afford to make adaptations to their businesses, those who have to continue to work in the heat and those who can’t afford to keep cool inside their homes suffering the most. 

While the rich, who proportionately cause more of the greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate emergency, can afford air conditioning and climate-controlled cars, one in five European citizens cannot afford to keep their homes cool in summer.

Energy poverty is often regarded as a seasonal issue that affects people when it’s cold when in reality it is just as devastating an issue during the heat of summer. 

This is partly due to the simple fact that summer energy poverty receives little attention from the media or politicians.

Even the EU statistics agency Eurostat fails to provide concrete data on summer energy poverty compared to its informative insights on winter energy poverty.

This will need to change as we go from one ‘hottest summer on record’ to another. Governments will need to start looking for solutions in order to prevent another summer of 2022 in which 70,000 people died from heat-related causes.

Climate disasters and extreme temperatures are changing what people across the world need from cities and homes. 

Decision makers will need to ensure that people can escape the heat and keep their homes at a comfortable and healthy temperature.

This will mean supporting people who are struggling to pay their bills or faced with (energy) poverty by ensuring they cannot be disconnected from their energy supply when they don’t manage to pay a bill.

They should be given the opportunity to access and join the renewable energy revolution, whether that’s through energy sharing, joining an energy community or accessing subsidy schemes for individual solar panels.

In the long run, we need comprehensive adaptation plans across Europe to prepare for the increasingly hot and stormy decades ahead of us.

This includes creating more green spaces in cities, enhancing forest fire prevention, and developing coherent heatwave strategies.

It is essential for governments across Europe to invest in making homes and buildings energy-efficient to protect people during both heatwaves and freezing temperatures, with a particular focus on the worst-performing buildings and the most vulnerable populations, who are hit the hardest by the effects of rising temperatures and rising energy costs, and who should be protected from paying the price of the climate transition.

But all of this becomes increasingly difficult if we don’t halt the underlying problems of growing inequality and greenhouse gas emissions causing accelerating climate change.

A step forward would be the introduction of measures to reduce energy demand targeting the biggest energy users. 

As global heating intensifies so will the risk to people in Europe and across the world. But with not everyone facing those risks equally, or being responsible for those risks equally, any adequate response must place climate justice at its heart.

Only then can we halt the deadly toll of the effect on people's lives of summer energy poverty.