Western Europe hit by record-breaking heatwave

**Nick Miles** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and at 15 Hours GMT on Tuesday the 23rd of June, these are our main stories. As a record-breaking heat wave continues in Western Europe, the head of the United Nations has warned that fossil fuels are driving a climate crisis. Afghan Taliban officials have held talks about migration with the European Union in Belgium, the first time the bloc has hosted such a delegation since the group seized power in Afghanistan five years ago.
Also in this podcast, how Romanian health officials went back in time to deal with a devastating hospital cyberattack and......diet, exercise, smoking, sleep, stress, being overweight, chronic inflammation.

**Anisha Patel** (0:47)
And these can then affect the way our dreams express themselves later on in life.

**Nick Miles** (0:53)
We look at the factors that are making current generations age faster and faster.
Temperature records are continuing to break across Europe. France has just sweated through its hottest night in more than 80 years. It's expected to peak on Wednesday afternoon at more than 41 degrees. It's a similar story across Spain, Italy, Germany and even up as far north as the UK. A funnel of air has been drawn in from the Sahara because of a persistent area of high pressure that's loitering stubbornly over Western Europe. More on the human impact of that in a moment, but first here's the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on the link between what's happening and climate change.

**Antonio Guterres** (1:39)
Climate chaos is accelerating before our eyes. We have just lived through the 11 hottest years ever recorded. And today this city and far beyond are experiencing the hottest day of the year with higher temperatures to come. But London isn't just calling, it's cooking. We must act with far greater urgency to strictly limit the magnitude and duration of any overshoot beyond 1.5 degrees.

**Nick Miles** (2:06)
Italy has declared a heat red alert in 15 cities, while rising temperatures are increasing the risk of forest fires in Germany. Half of France's regions are currently under the harshest weather warning.
Hundreds of schools have been closed and drinking alcohol has been restricted outdoors. Just a couple of the measures officials are introducing to deal with what is already a record-breaking heat wave. Anastasia spoke to us from southern France.

**Anastasia** (2:32)
Nîmes is one of the hottest cities in France. We just go outside at night because during the afternoon it's really hot and very hard to be outside. I think we have to adapt now. We have to use AC or to change because I think it's going to be harder and harder now.
We know now because it's the second heat wave we have. We had one in May, now we have one in June and I don't know what it's going to be in July and August.

**Nick Miles** (3:02)
Spain has already been dealing with the heat for weeks. Now it's getting even more intense. Large parts of the country are under weather warnings. This woman describes the conditions in the south.

**Manuel Electro-Ribero** (3:14)
It's horrible.

**Rachel Wright** (3:16)
It feels catastrophic.

**Antonio Guterres** (3:18)
I don't know what temperature we're at, but it feels horrendous. It feels awful.

**Rachel Wright** (3:23)
The heat right now is really, really, really bad.

**Nick Miles** (3:28)
Our correspondent in Paris, Hugh Schofield, told us more about the impact the heat's having.

**Hugh Schofield** (3:33)
Gradually over the last few years, we have been becoming accustomed to periods like this. And the forecasters have been telling us, everyone believes it now, that they are going to become more regular and therefore part of our lives. We were reporting in very similar circumstances about a month ago with a very similar period of unprecedented heat. And back then, all the people we were speaking to were saying what they're saying now, which is, this is something we're just going to have to learn to cope with. It's not pleasant. It's a kind of Middle Eastern style of heat, which the country's not really, certainly the northern part of the country is not equipped for. Here in Paris, private home schools don't tend to have air conditioning. And that's something which people are beginning to think more and more of. I know that there's been a rush on buying air conditioning units from suppliers. So, yeah, I mean, more and more, every time this happens, people realise that it's for real. It isn't a one-off. It's going to be part of our lives. And they're having to adapt.

**Nick Miles** (4:33)
Now to Spain. Our correspondent in Madrid is Guy Hedgeco.

**Guy Hedgecoe** (4:36)
We heard there from someone down in the south of the country, and it's normally the south which sees the worst of the heat. Today, for example, we're expecting temperatures are up to 44 Celsius down in the Guadalquivir Valley. I think, as you mentioned there, I think the big shock for people is seeing these kinds of temperatures earlier in the year or before the end of June. That comes as quite a shock because many people, they're trying to work as normal or children are at school. And when you have a heat wave in the middle of July or August, it's slightly different because much of the country tends to shut down, even many businesses shut down. Certainly, there's no school or no university classes in the middle of summer, but this is not the middle of summer. So that presents a series of challenges. Now, the government a few years ago did introduce some legislation aimed at this, for example, making sure that manual workers are not allowed to work during the hottest time of day during a heat wave.