Greece’s climate challenge

Greece has adopted laudable environmental goals, but its means of achieving them are not radical enough

A NASA photograph of Greece’s worst fires, in August-September 2007, which burned 2.3% of the country

Greece has received a brutal reminder of the changes that await it in a warmer world.

July was the hottest on record, NASA scientists have said, with air temperatures about 1.5°C warmer than the 1850-1900 average. In other words, July was a glimpse of what awaits us once we have exhausted the 1.5°C warming limit scientists consider ‘safe’.  

Sea surface temperatures also reached a record, according to the US’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), at 1.12°C above the 20^th century average for the month; so the sea’s capacity to absorb most of the carbon in the atmosphere and act as the great mitigator of global warming is also becoming strained.

There is a caveat. July is statistically the hottest month of the year, says NOAA; but the past nine have all been record-breakers.