With temperatures in the Greek capital reaching 40 degrees Celsius, Climate Now explores how Athens is trying to offset heat health risks with a 'cool routes' app, new pocket parks and renovating an ancient Roman aqueduct
00:00 Climate Now in collaboration with Copernicus.
00:04 Hello and welcome to Climate Now, our unique monthly update on what's really happening to our planet.
00:12 Coming up, we're in the Greek capital of Athens to hear how they're adapting to a warmer world.
00:19 We're trying to redesign the centre, make it shadier and making more cool routes to get from A to B.
00:28 First, the latest data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which shows that worldwide we just had the warmest June on record.
00:38 Globally, temperatures last month were just over 0.5 degrees Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average.
00:47 Looking at the map of European anomalies, we can see that Ireland, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands had their warmest Junes on record.
00:57 Meanwhile, it was colder than average across Turkey, Greece, parts of the Balkans and Russia.
01:03 One of the main factors driving the global heat record is that the surface of the sea is warmer.
01:10 You can see on this map, for example, there were exceptionally high sea surface temperatures over the North Atlantic, with extreme highs around the British Isles.
01:20 The water peaked at 5 degrees above average off the west of Ireland, hitting temperatures you'd normally expect at the end of summer rather than in June.
01:30 Several factors are likely to have contributed to the warmer water - lower winds, lower particle pollution and the long-term effects of climate change.
01:40 And now to our report on how Athens is adapting to a warmer world.
01:47 The Greek capital is right in the middle of a heatwave at the moment, with temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius.
01:54 We went there to see how they're adapting.
01:59 With its white buildings stretching to the horizon, the Greek capital is one of the most densely built cities in Europe and also the warmest.
02:07 The city's chief heat officer, Elisabet Vardiani, says the climate change outlook is grim.
02:13 If you see the projections for the next few decades are dramatic.
02:20 You know, we will be in constant heat conditions in the summer. We need to adjust our way of life into this heat and adapt.
02:28 To adjust and adapt, Athens has a complete action plan to raise awareness around the heat health risks and to rethink the city.
02:35 One of their initiatives is a smartphone app showing the coolest walking route from A to B.
02:42 It shows you the route to your destination according to the coolest streets to follow.
02:47 The algorithm calculates the temperature according to satellite data and also it calculates the density of the trees of the routes.
02:56 Elisabet takes us to one of the ten so-called pocket parks the city has created on wasteland.
03:03 This place was an abandoned place. There was no tree, no vegetation, no irrigation.
03:09 It's now a cooling spot in one of the city's warmest neighborhoods.
03:14 I think if you put your thermometer here under the trees and on the asphalt, you will see at least two degrees Celsius difference.
03:24 The cooling effect of greenery is vital because summer temperatures in Athens have already risen by an average of 1.9 degrees in the past 30 years.
03:34 And there's more to come, says meteorologist Panos Gianopoulos.
03:39 I think what the climate change studies show is that the climate in Greece will become warmer with hotter summers,
03:46 but also less cold winters and less rain in most areas of the country.
03:53 Water is the next challenge. So this Roman-era aqueduct is being renovated by Kostas Gerolimatos.
04:01 It could bring 50,000 cubic meters of currently unused groundwater per year to the suburbs.
04:08 If the aqueduct is still running, still working, because it's still working,
04:13 we want to take this water and distribute it to the daily life of the neighborhoods, of the residents.
04:19 The long-term goal is for 30% of Athens to be green space.
04:25 It's not going to happen tomorrow, but it will be a dead city if we don't do anything like that in the coming years.
04:34 And I think we will do it.
04:36 That's all we have time for. You can see all of the data presented in this program
04:44 and read more about Athens' climate plans on euronews.com/climate now.
04:49 I'll see you next time.
04:52 Climate Now in collaboration with Copernicus.
