In recent weeks, Europe has been racked by the most severe heatwave on record. European leaders were not shielded from its effects. Staff in the offices of the European Commission in Brussels suffered the consequences as the air-conditioning system on the lower seven floors faltered.
The event came close to serving as a parable for how the climate crisis is unfolding globally, as most of the lower-floor offices are occupied by junior staff. They sweltered, while the offices of the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other senior leaders remained cool.
With temperatures pushing past 40°C (104°F) across the continent, it is anticipated that as many as 1,300 people have already died, not including a spate of drownings recorded in France associated with the heat wave. There is little good news on the horizon as a second wave of heat is expected at the start of July.
Europe is heating up faster than any other region on the planet. As many as 150 million people have now been trapped under the “heat dome” as it has been described by meteorologists. Adaptation to these changing climate circumstances, if it is to happen, will have to be rapid.
A Belgian climatologist, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, explained on French news, “This is not the new normal; this might be considered, in a few decades from now, as a cool period.”
Ireland, where I am writing from, is objectively less affected by this climate trajectory than other European nations. But Irish society was left reeling last week as temperatures soared to an almost unprecedented level.
While 28°C (82°F) might not seem onerous to the average American, it is 50 percent hotter than would usually be anticipated, and the risk to vulnerable communities—babies, the elderly, those with serious illness and people with disabilities—was considered significant enough for the government to issue a nationwide “yellow” warning, meaning that localized weather danger was expected.
I spoke with Róisín Nic Cóil, who serves as the technical project manager for the Archdiocese of Dublin. In her role, she oversees the cataloging, maintenance and adaptation of the diocese’s building stock. On a weekly basis, she is out in parishes talking to clergy and lay people about their needs.
She is able to point to fascinating examples of parishes that are doing significant work to adapt to a changing climate—from the installation of solar panels to deep retrofits of parochial houses to creative engagements with the Irish bishops’ request that every church set aside 30 percent of its land for biodiversity.
But because Ireland has historically mostly experienced climate challenges around cold and rain, “the majority of parishes are concerned about heating.”
The growing reality of heatwaves “has not been on our radar” until very recently, Ms. Nic Cóil said.
Working as she does with many buildings located in the very heart of Dublin city, she sees challenges ahead in terms of ventilation. “Urban sites,” she explains, “often have difficulty.”
“You are dealing sometimes with very old buildings who have seen the city grow up around them. It is sometimes so built up on all sides that a change is hard to imagine. Historic ancient buildings have a fixed footprint, cut in stone, and that’s it.”
Ms. Nic Cóil has experienced a great deal of openness across the diocese on climate adaptation. She sees parish parking lots as sites of opportunity—their surfaces “could be made permeable to let more water through.”
Some churches have partnered with a charity called Pocket Forests to cultivate groves of trees on church land that can offer shade and general local cooling. But there is a vast distance to go before parishes can cope with the climate challenges now coming Europe’s way.
While many churches are coming around to climate friendly innovations on heating, Ms. Nic Cóil concludes: “I just don’t think [cooling] is something we are tuned into at all.”
Davide Dell’Oro, S.J., is definitely “tuned into it.” Living in Milan and serving as a visiting researcher at Politecnico di Milano, he studies decarbonization, climate resilience and strategic management of building portfolios. In an interview conducted over email, he reports that in northern Italy, “summer conditions have changed significantly.”
Heatwaves are “more frequent, more intense and longer lasting.” Father Dell’Oro reports that because the heat persists through the night, the natural cooling rhythms that were assumed when buildings were constructed no longer apply, meaning “many buildings start the following morning already overheated.”
Asked to imagine a typical Italian building, Americans may think of architectural masterpieces of centuries past. And these “very old masonry buildings perform better during heatwaves,” Father Dell’Oro says, because of the “high thermal mass” of their thick stone walls and their effective shading and cross-ventilation.
But most Italians actually live in relatively modern apartment complexes built after 1945 but before modern building standards were applied. They fall into an awkward position of lacking the intrinsic advantages of the older buildings while also featuring “little or no insulation and limited protection against summer overheating.”
Adapting these buildings for the new normal will prove immensely difficult and costly, according to Father Dell’Oro.
A first response, and one many Europeans are making, might seem most natural to Americans—installing air-conditioning. Europeans are notoriously resistant to a home technology many U.S. households take for granted.
Overall only about 20 percent of European homes have air conditioning, with Italy, where 56 percent of residential sites now include AC, setting the pace. Percentages in European states still lag far behind South Korea (98 percent), Japan (91 percent) and the United States (90 percent).
The normalizing of heat waves is propelling a change, however, and higher rates of AC adoption are anticipated across Europe.
“Cooling has become standard in most new residential buildings and is increasingly being added to existing homes through retrofit,” Father Dell’Oro says.
But the “upfront investment” puts it out of the financial reach of many, and “the nature of the buildings themselves” sometimes makes retrofitting for air conditioning difficult.
And even as more people install air-conditioning, a further challenge emerges—the Italian energy grid was “not originally designed for the simultaneous cooling demand that future heatwaves may generate, so upgrading buildings and strengthening the grid must go hand in hand.”
Higher rates of energy consumption because of mechanical cooling can lead to greater greenhouse gas emissions that propel the heat crisis in the first place. But energy analysts believe Europe may escape this climate paradox as many states accelerate the adoption of sustainable energy production from wind and solar sources.
The Guardian reports that European nations now burn fossil fuels for less than 30 percent of the continent’s electricity, and more than a dozen states plan to fully phase out fossil fuels from national power grids within a decade.
While air-conditioning is likely to become much more prevalent across Europe, it is not the magic solution that some might imagine. And leaving it to individual responses is insufficient.
As Father Dell’Oro sees it, “governments need to combine four types of action: better buildings, stronger infrastructure, smarter cities and better-informed people.” But he is eager to recall that “the first mission of the church is to care for people. During heatwaves, that mission becomes very concrete.”
In an Italian context, many church properties “are well placed to provide cool, welcoming spaces where people can find relief during the hottest hours of the day.” His idea that an open church can “become a place of rest, safety, and human encounter” has been taken up elsewhere.
Churches in Vienna have organized themselves to serve the common good in just this way. In the United Kingdom, there is a well-established movement that invites people to take refuge in older churches, reminding people that “church is cool.”
But the real response is not architectural but relational. Father Dell’Oro explains that “because churches are deeply rooted in local communities, they are often well placed to identify those most at risk, strengthen neighborhood networks and encourage mutual support.”
Father Dell’Oro is at the forefront of this conversation. He has been appointed as an advisor to the Euro-Mediterranean Province of the Society of Jesus on energy retrofitting and decarbonization projects across the Jesuits’ real estate portfolio.
And he may be pointing to something the wider church needs to “get tuned in on,” to use Ms. Nic Cóil’s term. As I spoke with friends across the continent, nobody could point to official church responses. One French contact noted that the bishops are “asking Catholics to pray about the end-of-life bill that is presently being discussed in parliament” but have been silent on the lethal heatwave caused by climate collapse.
This silence from church leadership is a profound pastoral blind spot. As Father Dell’Oro insists, citing Pope Francis, “caring for people and caring for our common home are inseparable.”
The contrast between Dublin’s nascent anxieties and Milan’s acute problems proves that European societies—and Europe’s faithful—can no longer treat climate adaptation as a task for tomorrow. Father Dell’Oro is confident that emerging technologies will play a part in the response to the climate crisis but “resilient communities are built through solidarity, care and the willingness to look after one another. This is one of the church’s most distinctive contributions: bringing together care for people, care for places and care for creation.”
Throwing open the doors of churches to offer sanctuary from the heat may demonstrate that in a society facing climate catastrophe, the coolest and safest place is found in community.
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