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By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

Hello,

More searing temperatures fuelled wildfires and prompted health warnings across Europe this week, as 20 people have been killed in Greece, while a blaze in Turkey forced the closure of the Dardanelles shipping lane.

Greek firefighters backed by aircraft battled a blaze spreading outside Athens for a second day on Wednesday as wildfires ravaged a country which have killed 20 people this week.

Several hundred people have fled their homes nationwide since fires erupted in northern Greece on Saturday, fanned by heat and high winds in the summer’s second major outbreak.

Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said 355 wildfires had erupted since Friday, including 209 in the last 48 hours. Firefighting teams were making “superhuman efforts” to contain them, he said.

A firefighting helicopter sprays down water, as a wildfire burns in Menidi, near Athens, Greece, August 23, 2023. REUTERS/Elias Marcou

Another 700 people were moved from a migrant camp in the Amygdaleza region, about 25 km (16 miles) north of Athens, a Migration Ministry official said.

“The fire went out for half an hour…. but with these very strong winds, it’s been alternately starting and then stopping again,” 60-year-old resident Dimitris Armenis told Reuters.

Near the northeastern Greek port city of Alexandroupolis, dozens of hospital patients, some on stretchers, others attached to IV drips, were evacuated onto a ferry as a fire in the area blazed for a fifth day.

The authorities were trying to identify 18 bodies discovered on Tuesday in Dadia forest in the Evros region on Turkey’s border, on a common route for migrants from the Middle East and Asia trying to cross into the European Union.

On the Turkish side, the authorities temporarily closed the Dardanelles Strait to shipping, creating a queue of about 100 cargo ships, to allow helicopters and planes to scoop up water to contain a forest fire in the area raging for a second day.

The strait, linking the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea, is a major shipping route for commodities such as oil and grains.

A Turkish goat herder had told people by mobile to flee a wildfire threatening a village in Turkey’s northwestern Canakkale province: “Let it burn if you must. Just get out of the village, don’t stay there any longer.”

France, which widened its heatwave red alert in the south of the country, said it would scale back production at a nuclear power plant as high temperatures curbed cooling water supply.

The French national weather service, Meteo-France, reported the country’s highest average temperature for the late summer period after Aug. 15 since records began in 1947. It said some areas of southern France would experience temperatures of 42 degree Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit).

Officials urged some mountain climbers to postpone their activities and told grape pickers to work in the morning to avoid the extreme heat.

In Spain, which is enduring its fourth heatwave of the summer, people who normally receive food and other necessities from the non-governmental organization Fundacion Madrina were also handed fans on Wednesday to cope with high temperatures.

Firefighters on the Spanish island of Tenerife have brought a blaze that has devastated forests under control, allowing about 8,000 evacuees to return.

But local farmers protested about the use of scarce water resources to fight the blaze and police said they had arrested an 80-year-old man for throwing stones at a firefighting helicopter, forcing it to make an emergency landing.

A man walks next to flames leaping from a burner of the state-owned oil company Petroecuador’s plant in Lago Agrio, Ecuador May 3, 2022. REUTERS/Santiago Arcos

Steve Davis, professor of earth systems science at University of California, Irvine, and head of climate science at U.S.-based climate platform Watershed shares his analysis on the recent wildfires and its effects on people’s health, the environment and economy:

“As we saw on the East Coast in June, the impact of fires extends beyond the localities where fires are burning to distant communities and population centers.

“Tallying up the financial impact of wildfires including these distant effects is difficult, but when we’ve done it, the numbers are huge. A study we did estimated the total damages of California wildfires in 2018 amounted to a staggering $148.5 billion, equivalent to approximately 1.5% of California’s annual GDP. 

“Even beyond the immediate damages to infrastructure and human health, large wildfires are adding millions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.

“Another study we published earlier this year showed that fires in northern Canada and Siberia in 2021 released more carbon than any prior year in recorded history – 480 million tons, and 2023 is now on track to set a new record.

“We’ve long counted on the world’s forests to soak up some of our carbon emissions, and it’s worrying to see them instead becoming a big source of emissions. As with all sources of emissions, it’s critical we continue to monitor the trends and analyze their causes to have any hope of avoiding the damage that fires are doing.”

Millions of people in the western Canadian province of British Columbia were under air quality warnings as hundreds of wildfires filled the skies with smoke and turned the sun orange. Forest fires are not uncommon in Canada, but the spread of blazes and disruption underscore the severity of its worst wildfire season yet.

About 140,000 square km (54,054 square miles) of land, roughly the size of New York state, have already burned, and government officials project the fire season could stretch into autumn due to widespread drought-like conditions in Canada.

Keso Baramidze, co-founder of Peteasy cat shelter, poses with a cat that recently recovered from a spinal fracture, in Tbilisi, Georgia August 18, 2023. REUTERS/Roman Churikov

Today’s spotlight shines a light on two topics that are near and dear to my heart – animals and wine. In Georgia, animal activists are urging residents to look after the city’s strays during the scorching heat. Over in the south of France, winemakers are tasting the bright side of a hotter season as the prolonged hot spell has produced “exceptional” quality vintage wine.

In the blistering summer heat, Georgia’s stray dogs and cats are struggling to survive amid Europe’s rolling heat wave. But that’s where activists step in to help the animals in its capital, Tbilisi.

According to activists, around 500,000 stray dogs and cats live in the country alongside 3.7 million humans. Though the strays spend their days wandering Tbilisi’s streets, some are lucky enough to spend the nights in shops and homes, receiving food and shelter from kind Georgians.

Animal Project volunteers have been out in the capital, giving strays water. The group hopes to persuade business owners to allow strays to shelter indoors during the hottest part of the day. They also want more government funds for sterilization to reduce the number of strays, with new schemes to make it easier for people to adopt animals and help change attitudes towards strays.

Red grapes in a truck as a machine harvests grapes at a vineyard during a night harvest in Valvigneres in the Ardeche department, France, August 23, 2023. REUTERS/Clotaire Achi

Scorching temperatures have hurt vines in southern France so much that output will fall but the hot weather could produce a vintage of “exceptional” quality, winemaker Jerome Volle said as he harvested grapes in the early hours of Wednesday to avoid the heat.

A hot spell has hit large parts of France in recent days with temperatures expected to peak at 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in the wine-growing Rhone Valley this week.

“This year we are on a late concentration which will raise the quality of the grapes, and therefore the cost of the wine, as the smoothness and aromas which will emerge will make a rather exceptional wine for the 2023 vintage,” Volle said in his vineyard in Valvigneres in the Ardeche region.

The fall in output was currently expected at between 10% and 20% in the region but with a higher quality, said Volle, who represents Ardeche winemakers.

“Wildfires happen constantly, and are expected to worsen with El Niño. This will have a resounding impact on the world’s food supply and human health. Wildfire smoke can also seriously affect crop health. Smoke and wildfire pollutants block crops’ access to the sun, preventing plants from absorbing necessary nutrients.” 

Vasco van Roosmalen, CEO and co-founder of U.S.-based carbon credit firm, ReSeed

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