Climate change response in Europe: what’s the reality? Analysis of adaptation and mitigation plans from 200 urban areas in 11 countries

Urban areas are pivotal to global adaptation and mitigation efforts. But how do cities actually perform in terms of climate change response? This study sheds light on the state of urban climate change adaptation and mitigation planning across Europe. Europe is an excellent test case given its advanced environmental policies and high urbanization. We performed a detailed analysis of 200 large and medium-sized cities across 11 European countries and analysed the cities’ climate change adaptation and mitigation plans. We investigate the regional distribution of plans, adaptation and mitigation foci and the extent to which planned greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions contribute to national and international climate objectives. To our knowledge, it is the first study of its kind as it does not rely on self-assessment (questionnaires or social surveys). Our results show that 35 % of European cities studied have no dedicated mitigation plan and 72 % have no adaptation plan. No city has an adaptation plan without a mitigation plan. One quarter of the cities have both an adaptation and a mitigation plan and set quantitative GHG reduction targets, but those vary extensively in scope and ambition. Furthermore, we show that if the planned actions within cities are nationally representative the 11 countries investigated would achieve a 37 % reduction in GHG emissions by 2050, translating into a 27 % reduction in GHG emissions for the EU as a whole. However, the actions would often be insufficient to reach national targets and fall short of the 80 % reduction in GHG emissions recommended to avoid global mean temperature rising by 2 °C above pre-industrial levels.     

The world’s earliest instrumental temperature records, from 1632 to 1648, claimed by G. Libri, are reality or myth?

In 1830, Libri announced the finding of a 16-year-long record of daily temperature observed in Florence, Italy, by Father Renieri before the activity of the Medici Network (1654 to 1670) that is usually considered the earliest instrumental series in the world. The Libri announcement was supported by the concurrent finding of a box with the early Little Florentine Thermometers that survived the Inquisition and was confirmed by Schouw, von Humboldt and Maxwell. However, all investigations made to find Renieri’s observations were fruitless. This paper clarifies this complex situation differentiating between myth and reality. A careful analysis of the Libri’s announcement in the historical context points out that Libri made the announcement while escaping for conspiracy from Florence and needed a scoop to be introduced in the French Academy of Sciences. For this reason he made a deliberate mix of new and old assertions, i.e. he claimed to have made new discoveries but without explaining too much and reporting misleading details about well known stories concerning the earliest meteorological observations. This induced people to suppose that further, earlier records existed. The consequence of this was that climatologists searched for years the claimed records. This paper shows that the Medici Network almost certainly contains the earliest exploitable instrumental observations. The possibility of finding a short series of observations prior to 1654 is remote.