Dried and tested

Europe’s drought is a live experiment in how climate change becomes a threat multiplier. Satellite images show swathes of the continent burnt and brown, but it’s the less visible secondary impacts of drought – on food, energy and economic systems – that expose how Europe is ill-prepared for a hotter future.

• In Norway, where hydropower accounts for 90 per cent of electricity needs, the government has introduced curbs on electricity exports while it waits for reservoirs normally used to produce power to be refilled.

• France has been switching off nuclear plants reliant on rivers that are no longer deep or cold enough to take the heat out of reactor cores. Across Europe, domestic energy sources have been disrupted and that means increased demand for oil and gas imports. ‘Heatflation’ is pushing up prices even higher.

• In Germany, knee-deep water levels in parts of the Rhine have made it impassable for larger barges. Up to four times as many smaller vessels are needed to transport each load and the price to haul coal and oil has reached €267 a ton, up more than ten-fold since June. To note: less severe transit issues on the Rhine in 2018 wiped €5 billion off regional economies. 

• In the UK, potato farmers are reporting yields reduced by as much as 40 per cent in the driest parts of the country. Corn and wheat prices are expected to rise as livestock farmers are forced to dip into winter feed supplies. Over the weekend, the Environment Agency confirmed drought status for eight of the 14 areas into which it divides the country.

For Laura Niggli, a climate researcher at the University of Zurich, the rising frequency of Europe’s droughts is even more worrying than their intensity. For example, repeated heat and drought events (2011, 2015 and 2018) have left their mark on one of the most effective natural methods for keeping water in the ground – trees.

“If you have a drought event once every 20 years, a lot of trees will suffer but then regrow. But if you have drought and heat events every other year, then trees that have been weakened, dried out, or infected with pests will die. This is what’s happening to the whole system.”

Solutions

• Better water management. In the UK, roughly 20 per cent of mains water supply is lost each day to leakage. In Germany and Denmark it’s closer to 10 per cent. But UK water companies also haven’t paid enough attention to helping customers reduce consumption – for instance with water meters. In 2020-21 not a single company met its per capita target. The pandemic led to more people using water at home, but data from previous years paints a similar picture, with only a handful of companies on track. 

UK water companies have all committed to a target of 110 litres per person per day by 2050, but according to Professor Jim Hall, Director of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, “it’s not clear how they are going to get there based on what’s in their plans at the moment.”

• Wetland restoration. As well as locking in carbon, wetlands can help replenish aquifers and protect against the spread of wildfire. Over the last century, 90 per cent of UK wetlands have been lost to development and agriculture. One cause for optimism, is the successful reintroduction of wild beavers to parts of the UK – natural dam-building is proven not only to reduce the risk of flooding after heavy rain, but also to store water and maintain flows during periods of drought.

• Building capacity. Since the 1990s, UK spending on water infrastructure has flatlined and the last substantial reservoir built in England was finished in 1981. But other, quicker, projects should be considered too: desalination plants, stormwater capture and wastewater reuse make up a substantial proportion of supply in places like Israel and Singapore where water is treated as a national security issue. Time for the UK and Europe to do the same?

What next?

It will take more than the showers forecast for this week to replenish Europe’s water supply. Experts are warning that without a wet autumn, drought conditions in the UK could continue into next year. But there’s nothing like a lack of water to force humans to act. The wide waterways and temperate weather that once helped grow Europe’s economy are changing fast. It’s time to plan for a dryer future.

By now, pay later
Is now the time to install solar panels on your roof? Simon Evans of Carbon Brief has crunched the numbers and found that the payback period for a £4,300 rooftop solar system, with a power capacity of 3kW, equates to 11.1 years of energy bills under the current price cap. By next April, some analysts are predicting that the average energy bill could reach £5,277. That would bring down the payback time on a home solar system to just 4.1 years. The calculations assume households would use 45 per cent of the electricity they generate, with the rest sold back to the grid at 4p per kWh. Or they could use even less energy and pay it back even quicker. For those fed up with being beholden to global energy markets, and can afford it, it’s a tempting offer.

Cash for the Kingdom
Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, has broken its own record by posting a £40 billion profit for the second quarter of 2022. A chunk of that profit has gone towards the company’s £18.8 billion dividend – a large source of revenue for the kingdom. From investor reports, it’s not clear how much is being spent by Aramco on renewable energy, except for a 30 per cent stake it took last year in the new Sudair Solar Plant. The company’s plans for reaching net zero show that it doesn’t intend to cut emissions from current levels until 2035. CEO Amin Nasser said he expects “oil demand to continue to grow for the rest of the decade, despite downward economic pressures on short-term global forecasts.”

Reserves and reservations
The newly passed US Inflation Reduction Act contains plenty of tax incentives to turbocharge the US’s transition metal industry. But which communities will gain? According to research by MSCI, many of the metals critically needed for the transition from fossil fuels are located either near or within areas of cultural and environmental importance to Native Americans. This is particularly true for the nickel used in electric vehicle production – 97 per cent of reserves are located within 35 miles of a reservation. Indigenous communities are all too familiar with the damage that can be wrought by the extractive demands of the US economy. Biden and the Democrats will no doubt be keen to avoid any disputes between them and miners. Prior and informed consent would be a good start.

Golf cement
“Let them play golf” seems to be the current attitude of the French government despite widespread drought. Golf courses have been given exemptions from total water usage restrictions. As many residents in the worst hit regions are banned from watering gardens and washing their cars, golf greens are still allowed to use 30 per cent of their usual volume of water.  Gérard Rougier, of the French Golf Federation, argued that “a golf course without a green is like an ice-rink without ice”. In response, climate activists in Toulouse under the Extinction Rebellion banner have filled golf course holes with cement. They argue that the exemptions are  “economic madness” taking precedence over “ecological reason”. On average, it takes 25,000 cubic metres of water per year to water the lawns of the more than 700 courses in France.

Thanks for reading.

Barney Macintyre

@barneymac

Additional reporting by Phoebe Davis. Edited by Giles Whittell.

With thanks to our coalition members: a network of organisations similarly committed to achieving Net Zero