Wildfires - Photo © European Union 2026

As catastrophic wildfires sweep across Southern Europe, WWF warns that the EU is sleepwalking into a permanent wildfire crisis while simultaneously weakening key environmental protections that help safeguard people, economies and nature from climate impacts.

Temperature controls - Photo by HUUM on Unsplash

With days growing hotter, air conditioning is playing an ever-growing role in how people cope with the heat. In EU households, energy consumption for cooling has steadily increased, reaching 80.4 thousand terajoules (TJ) in 2024.