European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a “new European heatwave plan” during her inaugural State of the Union speech on Wednesday, after a dramatic summer that saw thousands of hectares burnt and tonnes of crops lost to raging wildfires.

“We need better early warning systems and better health preparedness. We need urban adaptation and cooling. And we need to support the most vulnerable,” von der Leyen told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg.

She described the summer as a “summer of truth”, pointing to hundreds of thousands of hectares burned, crop losses and more than 35,000 excess deaths.

However, the timing is hard to ignore…

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