A woman walks through a fountain to cool off as a heatwave hits southern Europe, in Beziers, southern France, on June 28, 2025. Southern Europeans braced on June 28 for the first heatwave of the northern hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes thermometers on the world's fastest-warming continent increasingly into the red. GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP
June 28, 2025
Marseille, France (AFP)-Southern Europeans braced Saturday for their first heatwave of the northern hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes thermometers on the world’s fastest-warming continent increasingly into the red.
Scientists have long warned that humanity’s burning of fossil fuels is heating up the world with disastrous consequences for the environment. Europe’s ever-hotter and increasingly common blistering summer heatwaves are a direct result of that warming, they argue.
In Italy, 17 cities — from Milan in the north to Palermo in the south — were put on red alert for high temperature, with peaks recorded of 39 degrees Celsius (12 Fahrenheit).
In Rome, the high temperatures drove the Eternal City’s many tourists and pilgrims towards its 2,500 public fountains for refreshment.
And in Venice, visitors to — and protesters against — Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos’s Friday wedding in Venice sweltered in the extreme heat.
“There is no wind, a lot of humidity, we are sweating, and I’m suffocating at night,” Alejandra Echeverria, a 40-year-old Mexican tourist to the city, told AFP on Saturday