The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has published the first edition of the State of the Climate in Europe, with a focus on 2021; Luxembourg was among the coordinators of this report.
The report concluded that temperatures in Europe have risen around twice as fast as the global average over the past 30 years, which represents the highest rate of all continents. If this warming trend continues, extreme heat, wildfires, devastating floods and other effects of climate change are expected to increasingly wreak havoc on society, economies and ecosystems.
In a video message broadcast during the report presentation in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday 2 November 2022, Luxembourg's Minister of Agriculture, Viticulture and Rural Development, Claude Haagen, insisted on the fact that "the agricultural sector, the foundation of global food production, is particularly affected by climate variability, climate change and extreme events". He added: "This is why, in Luxembourg, the Ministry of Agriculture decided, as early as 1907, to start collecting meteorological observations. These long-term records now provide us with the data needed to understand the rapid evolution of our climate".
The WMO report was written by a number of experts from European meteorological services and United Nations (UN) agencies. This effort was coordinated by three coordinating authors, including Dr Andrew Ferrone, Head of the meteorological department at Luxembourg's Administration of Technical Agricultural Services and representative to the WMO.
