Extreme Floods Are Devastating Europe

Current conditions: Severe flooding in west and central Africa has displaced nearly one million people • Brazil is choking on wildfire smoke that can be seen from space • Shanghai was struck by Typhoon Bebinca, the strongest storm to hit the city in 75 years.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Parts of Europe washed out by flooding from Storm Boris

Flooding across central and eastern Europe has killed at least 10 people and forced tens of thousands to evacuate. Since late last week, the slow-moving Storm Boris has dumped huge amounts of rain on the region, causing dams to burst and rivers to overflow and inundating communities in Austria, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Parts of eastern Germany are also on alert. In the Austrian capital of Vienna, the Wien River’s water level rose from about 20 inches to more than seven feet in the course of a day. Meanwhile some mountain regions received more than three feet of snow. In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk today declared a state of natural disaster. According to the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, the floods could be the worst since 2002.

Flooding in ViennaChristian Bruna/Getty Images

The European Environment Agency has warned that flooding is likely to be “one of the most serious effects from climate change in Europe over coming decades.”

2. Tropical cyclone approaches Carolinas

Both U.S. coasts are experiencing wild weather but of very different kinds. The National Hurricane Center issued tropical storm warnings for the Carolinas as “Tropical Cyclone Eight” approaches with 50 mph winds. The system could bring up to 8 inches of rain and flash floods. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, parts of California are expecting snow. The state issued its earliest snow advisory in 20 years for the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where up to 4 inches could fall through Monday afternoon.

3. A quick roundup of COP29 developments

With COP29 now less than two months away, key players are working hard to lay the groundwork for the outcomes they’d like to see from the annual climate summit. Here are some recent developments:

• Host country Azerbaijan plans to call for a six-fold increase in energy storage capacity by 2030 at the summit in November, according to Bloomberg. The Global Green Energy Storage Pledge will ask more than 190 countries to back the goal, which would see storage capacity reach 1,500 gigawatts, up from 230 GW in 2022.
• A new report from the UN’s Standing Committee on Finance says $500 billion is needed each year to help poor nations adapt to climate change and transition to renewable energy. Setting a new goal on climate finance – up from $100 billion annually – will be one of the main agenda items in Baku.
• Large oil-producing countries are reportedly trying to impede any further progress on the global plan to phase out fossil fuels. Negotiators for western countries told the Financial Times that they’re exerting pressure on Azerbaijan to prioritize conversations at COP29 about how to go forward with the phase out, which was agreed at last year’s summit in Dubai. One negotiator told the FT that large emitters may try to use the finance negotiations to “block any meaningful progress on mitigation.”

4. Study: U.S. to see rise in weather-related supply chain disruptions

A recent study finds that the risk of weather-related supply chain disruptions will rise more in the U.S. than in any other country over the next 15 years. This is because the country is starting from a pretty low baseline risk, thanks to the interconnectivity of all the states. “If a heatwave or period of extreme rainfall hits one part of the U.S., it is easily able to import goods and services from other areas,” CarbonBrief explained. But the risk won’t stay that low forever, and indeed the authors note that the U.S. “is subject to the strongest relative increases in consumption risks” through 2040 as weather shocks increase.

5. Tesla’s surging Cybertruck sales are turning heads

Tesla sold 5,175 Cybertrucks in July, according to data from S&P Global Mobility. Sales of all other EV pickups combined during that month reached 5,546. Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor and energy systems engineering expert (and co-host of Heatmap’s climate podcast Shift Key) predicted back in December that the Cybertruck would be crushed by EV pickup rivals like the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian’s R1. But now…

X/JesseJenkins

THE KICKER

The U.S. Postal Service recently started rolling out its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles — most of which will be electric. The vehicles may not be beautiful, but as Paul Waldman argued for Heatmap, if you want to normalize EVs, “what better way than to have a funky-looking EV rolling down your street every day, delivering mail to your door?”

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