Holidaymakers evacuated in Greece wildfires amid heatwave in Europe

Meanwhile, in the UK, leaked government plans for adapting the UK to the effects of climate change have been labelled as “deeply disappointing”.

The latest National Adaptation Programme had been expected to be published on Tuesday, but was released on Monday following a leak to The Guardian newspaper.

The 140-page document offers a five-year plan that ministers said would boost resilience and help protect people, homes and businesses from heatwaves, droughts, floods and the other damaging impacts of climate change.

It also commits the Ministry of Justice to research the impact of climate on staff and prisoner behaviour, with pilots planned by 2027.

On the natural environment, Defra also pointed to plans for environmental land management schemes and local nature recovery strategies.

But the plan was criticised for failing to properly grapple with adaptation planning.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas called it “deeply disappointing and really lacking in ambition”.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation, wrote on Twitter: “In many parts of the world, today is predicted to be the hottest day on record.

“And these records have already been broken a few times this year. Heatwaves put our health and lives at risk.

“The #ClimateCrisis is not a warning. It’s happening. I urge world leaders to act now.”

It comes as many parts of Italy are poised to hit 45C on Tuesday.

European Union members are debating whether to update their climate pledge ahead of this year’s Cop28 summit, to show they expect to exceed their current goal for CO2 emission cuts, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.

The bloc has one of the most ambitious climate targets among major economies, having enshrined in law a commitment to cut its net greenhouse gas emissions 55 per cent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels.

The document said EU countries may notify the UN that they can reach a 57 per cent emissions cut. The text was in brackets, indicating it is not yet agreed by all countries, and the improved goal would only occur if member states comply with recently-passed EU policies to expand renewables and impose higher fees on polluting firms.

In Greece, where two wildfires near Athens forced the evacuation of at least six seaside communities, the army, police forces and volunteer rescuers are reported to have freed retirees from their homes, rescued horses from a stable, and helped monks flee a monastery threatened by the flames.

In the latest of The Independent’s “In Focus” series, Graham Keeley reports from Madrid:

For Kinvara Vaughan, the prospect of record temperatures hitting the Mediterranean from Tuesday fills her with dread.

“I saw the headline: heat storm heading for Europe this week. It is terrifying. We are doing a spectacular job destroying the planet,” she says from her home in Marbella, southern Spain.

Parts of southern Europe could hit its hottest ever temperature on Italy’s islands of Sicily and Sardinia, where a high of 48C is predicted, according to the European Space Agency. Spain’s Aemet weather agency said the heatwave this week “will affect a large part of the countries bordering the Mediterranean”, with temperatures in some southern areas of Spain exceeding 42C.

The power of the sun is very real for Vaughan, given a discovery by her doctors earlier this year. “They discovered three moles with stage one melanoma, and they could treat them. They said that I would not need chemotherapy. It was a shock as I had not been for a check-up for over three years. I was so lucky, ” the 47-year-old half-British, half-Canadian equestrian centre manager tells The Independent.

Read the full article with Independent Premium:

Canadian wildfire smoke has returned to parts of the United States this week, our senior climate correspondent Louise Boyle reports.

Air quality alerts were issued for the northern High Plains, the Midwest, Great Lakes, central Tennessee, North Carolina and the Northeast through Tuesday as northwesterly winds pushed smoke down from fires raging across Canada.

Smoke concentrations will recede over central parts of the US on Tuesday but may still cause poor air quality along the East Coast, the National Weather Service (NWS) reported.

The higher concentrations of smoke will result in unhealthy air quality for sensitive groups cause by high levels of particulate matter PM2.5.

Experts have warned of the potentially deadly impacts on workers exposed to extreme heat, as they criticised insufficient health and safety protections despite the increasing risk.

“It is clear that in many parts of the world, workers in high exposure sectors such as agriculture and construction are at increasing risk from heat stress, yet there are still insufficient health and safety protections,” said Professor Elizabeth Robinson, of the London School of Economics.

“There is still insufficient understanding of how worker health is being harmed, the extent to which workers are able to adapt to the reality of increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat, and the extent to which employers are taking action to protect workers’ health.”

Dr Shouro Dasgupta, also of LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, added: “Heatwaves result in increased risk of discomfort, of limitations in physical functions and capabilities, and ultimately also of injuries and heat-related illnesses such as heat cramps, and heat exhaustion, to potentially fatal heat stroke.

“Workers might think about changing what they wear, taking additional breaks, and increasing rehydration.”

Hundreds of children have been evacuated from a summer camp and villagers forced to leave their homes as two separate wildfires fanned by strong winds damaged houses to the southeast and west of Athens, authorities said.

The blaze that broke out in the village of Kouvaras, just 17 miles from the Greek capital, spread fast amid erratic winds, a Greek fire service official said. Some 200 firemen with the help of around 20 soldiers, 68 engines and 16 aircraft were trying to control the flames, the official added.

Greek television showed several houses and cars gutted by the blaze and thick white smoke billowing from burning vegetation.

“Due to high winds, the blaze spread across 12 kilometres in two hours,” a Greek Fire Service spokesperson said, adding that police had detained a person suspected of arson. Fire brigade services have been placed on standby in the wider Athens area.

Around 1,200 children from a summer camp and residents of a rehabilitation centre were evacuated in another wildfire close to the seaside resort of Loutraki, about 50 miles west of Athens, a local mayor told Greek television.

Hot air which has pushed from Africa into southern Europe has turned Italy into “a giant pizza oven”, with heat in warm sea, land and air is continuing to build, an expert has said – as she warned that forecast climate impacts appear to be happening simultaneously across the world.

“The bubble of hot air that has inflated over southern Europe has turned Italy and surrounding countries into a giant pizza oven,” said Professor Hannah Cloke, of the University of Reading.

“The hot air which pushed in from Africa is now staying put, with settled high pressure conditions meaning that heat in warm sea, land and air continues to build.

“It is not surprising that different parts of the northern hemisphere have heatwaves during our summer months, but the combined picture is starting to look like climate change impacts all happening at the same time, as scientists have forecast for decades. We are now living through these impacts, rather than predicting them in a computer simulation of the future climate.

“Sea level rise, melting ice, extreme heatwaves, intense rainfall, wildfires, drought and floods are cropping up in many parts of the world at the same time. In previous heatwaves, such as Britain’s hot summer of 1976, other parts of the globe had a relatively cool year. Today’s extremes of weather are increasingly throwing everything everywhere all at once.”