European Environment Agency

14/09/2026

14/09/2026

Voting is now open for the Public Choice Award of this year's EEA Photo Competition 2026, Resilient by nature! 📸

The finalist photographs reveal nature's resilience, fragility and extraordinary capacity to recover.

Now it is your turn to choose the winner.

Browse the shortlisted images, pick your favourites and cast your vote by 27 September.

👉 Vote now: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/competition

11/09/2026

🌱Climate change is reshaping Europe's agricultural calendar, with consequences from field to fork.

According to the European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA) published by the EEA, warmer temperatures are already causing crops across Europe to develop earlier and growing seasons to lengthen. But an earlier start doesn't necessarily lead to better harvests.

🌻When crops flower sooner, they can become more vulnerable to late frosts, extreme weather and water stress. As climate change accelerates, farmers are having to adapt to new conditions, and also to a new timetable.

Furthermore, EUCRA highlights a growing paradox: longer growing seasons may create new opportunities in some regions, while increasing the risks of crop losses and lower yields in others. A just transition will be essential to ensure that the costs and benefits of adaptation are shared fairly across regions, sectors and communities.

👉For more EUCRA insights: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/publications/european-climate-risk-assessment

10/09/2026

🚨 It is official: summer 2026 was the hottest summer ever recorded in Western Europe.
This is according to the Copernicus EU Climate Change Service (C3S), who shows that this summer is surpassing the previous record set in 2003.

Europe is warming at roughly twice the global average rate, making it the fastest-warming continent on Earth, due to climate change.

🌡️ Heat
August brought further heatwaves across the region, continuing an exceptional run of extreme heat that began in May.

💧 Drought
Widespread dryness affected much of western Europe and large parts of central and eastern Europe in August, in some areas persisting since May. C3S reports severe drought conditions in France, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Romania and Serbia.

🏞️ River flows
Across these dry regions, major European rivers saw exceptionally low flows, including the Rhine, Danube, Southern Bug and Dnieper.

Explore the EEA's climate risk assessment: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0y9_jd0
Read the full C3S update: Climate Bulletins | Copernicus (https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0y9_cS0)

10/09/2026

🚨 August 2026 was the warmest month ever recorded globally.

This is according to the Copernicus EU Climate Change Service (C3S), who recorded a global average surface air temperature of 16.96°C, 0.85°C above the 1991–2020 average.

The month was also the warmest August on record in the ERA5 dataset, surpassing the previous joint record set in 2023 and 2024, and 1.65°C above the estimated pre-industrial baseline, the first month to exceed 1.5°C since November 2025.

C3S scientists link the persistence of these records to the long-term warming trend driven by continued greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

🌊 Ocean heat
Sea surface temperatures across the extra-polar ocean reached a joint monthly record, tied with March 2024, and the highest daily figure ever recorded, at 21.11°C.

🌴 El Niño and wildfires
Record sea surface temperatures across the tropical Pacific point to an intensifying El Niño event, with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) linking conditions to intensifying seasonal wildfires across Indonesia.

☀️ Western Europe August also marked the end of western Europe's warmest summer on record, surpassing the previous record set in 2003, with heatwaves continuing an exceptional run of extreme heat that began in May. Europe is warming up twice as fast as the global average, being the continent which warms up the fastest.

June to August 2026 was the joint-warmest such period on record globally, on par with 2024.

Read the full C3S update: Climate Bulletins | Copernicus https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yb1GY0

Read more about Europe's climate change in EUCRA: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yb1GZ0

09/09/2026

📡 Seen from space: the recent impact of a major wildfire in western Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the EEA cooperating countries.

🔥 In just three days, by 7 September the wildfire had affected around 14,000 hectares, with an active fire front extending more than 20 km.

Displacing communities, destroying infrastructure and imposing heavy economic burdens, wildfires also pose serious public health risks with the smoke they produce. Smoke from the blaze in Bosnia and Herzegovina spread across the Adriatic towards Croatia and Italy.

This Copernicus EU Sentinel-2 image shows the burn scar, active fire fronts and smoke plumes, highlighting how satellite data supports wildfire monitoring, impact assessment and recovery planning.

More about the impacts of wildfires in Europe here: https://discomap.eea.europa.eu/ClimatePreparedness2026/?page=Wildfires-and-their-impacts

09/09/2026

📈With around 1.8 million renewable energy jobs in 2024, the EU is one of the world's largest renewable energy employers, ranking behind China and the rest of Asia.

In 2024, the EU accounted for 18% of global employment in onshore and offshore wind, and around 10% in solar PV.

Within the EU, wind is the largest direct employer (273,500 jobs in 2023), followed by solar PV (227,000), heat pumps (80,100) and batteries (33,000, the fastest-growing of the four).

But the report warns that growth is not guaranteed. Skill shortages in installation and construction roles, and low participation by women and young people, risk holding the sector back.

The report calls for coordinated action on training and job quality to secure the sector's growth.

👉Read the full report 'Clean energy technologies in the European Union — Implications for quality jobs, skills and a just transition':

https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0y9pGW0

08/09/2026

Who will power Europe’s clean energy transition, and how?

📅 Wednesday 9 September 2026, 9:30 to 13:00

Join the live stream from Brussels for the launch of our new report on clean energy technologies and quality jobs, skills and a just transition in the European Union and a discussion on the workforce needed to drive the transition forward.

▶️More about the event and link to live stream here:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/events/clean-energy-technologies-and-jobs

This event, organised by the EEA in partnership with EESC - European Economic and Social Committee, includes a speech from MEP Thomas Pellerin-Carlin and panellists representing the European Commission (DG EMPL), IG Metall, Eurofound, WindEurope, International Energy Agency (IEA).

07/09/2026

Cleaner air is one of Europe's environmental success stories 🌬️

Thanks to EU, national and local action, air pollution levels have fallen significantly over the past two decades, with major improvements for pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and lead.

Yet clean air remains a challenge. Air pollution is still Europe's biggest environmental health risk, and more than 90% of people living in urban areas across the EU are exposed to air pollutant concentrations above World Health Organization (WHO) guideline levels.

Reducing pollution further is essential to protect our health, improve quality of life and support a more sustainable future. On this International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies, we celebrate progress while recognising that continued action is needed to ensure clean air for everyone.


UN Environment Programme Europe

06/09/2026

A great example of how to use nature-based solutions to prevent extreme weather events, in Portugal 🇵🇹.

A dual retention basin in Setúbal, Portugal, has helped shield the city centre from flooding during recent heavy rainfall. Extreme weather events are becoming more and more frequent in Europe, as the continent is warming up twice the global speed, due to climate change, and floods are the most costly, at European level.

🛰️ This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 31 August 2026, shows the Sado Estuary stretching east from Setúbal, where tidal flats and wetlands meet dense urban development and surrounding farmland and forest.
Located around 30 kilometres south of Lisbon, Setúbal faces a recurring flood risk: heavy rainfall runoff from higher ground combining with elevated water levels in the estuary. The city's Várzea Urban Park addresses this by storing excess rainwater and regulating its flow towards the city and the estuary, while the surrounding green space adds capacity for water to soak into the soil.
🌍 Copernicus EU satellite data support the monitoring of urban and coastal environments, tracking land cover, water bodies, and landscape change over time.
Explore more nature-based adaptation examples like this one on Climate-ADAPT, the European platform for sharing knowledge on climate adaptation: https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/eu-policy/eu-adaptation-policy/eu-mission-on-adaptation