Eurostar, the international high-speed rail service in Western Europe, will now be building its new generation of trains to withstand 55C summers. The new trains, to be built by Alstom, were originally designed to cope with conditions of up to 45C. But the UK Times website quotes Gwendoline Cazenave, chief executive of Eurostar, saying: “We thought, hey, this is northern Europe — the UK, Germany, Switzerland — and in France we don’t go south of Paris, so up to 45 degrees is OK. Then, a week ago, after the last heatwave, we decided to take the 55C option.” The first trains are due to be delivered in 2031.
The Financial Times reports that Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, thinks that Europe has made a “major mistake” by failing to wean its economy off imported fossil fuels quickly enough since the 2022 energy crunch. Europe’s low electrification rate — the share of electricity in total EU energy consumption — of around 23 per cent is holding back the bloc’s competitiveness and economic “sovereignty,” Birol said. Both Birol and Europe’s energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen said in a joint interview that Europe needs to electrify its economy faster after facing two energy crises in less than five years. Europe should seek to emulate countries such as China, Japan and South Korea, which have an electrification rate of more than 30 per cent, Birol said. The European Commission is planning to set out plans to increase the electricitiy rate. “A draft document of the proposal, seen by the FT, underlines that there are only two member states where electricity is less than twice as expensive as gas for industries: Sweden and Finland.”
In a Financial Times newsletter report, IEA head Fatih Birol urged Brussels to reconsider its opposition to Arctic oil and gas exploration. He said Europe would need “a lot of gas, a lot of oil” in the years ahead. “Europe is not an oil- or gas-rich continent. We will need in Europe a lot of gas, a lot of oil, and I hope that Europeans get this oil and gas from a country that they can trust.” Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s finance minister, reiterated Oslo’s position: “We don’t support the idea of banning oil and gas exploration in the Arctic as a general rule.” It will be interesting to see how the EU deals with this.
The Financial Times also reported that the world’s largest meat group, JBS, is dropping its net zero target that includes suppliers’ GHG emissions. “The decision by the Brazilian meat group with global operations involves dropping a net zero target that includes greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere by suppliers, which make up the vast bulk of the company’s environmental footprint.”.
Politico reports that Italy “is leading a rearguard effort to water down environmental rules in the EU’s next €2 trillion budget, opening a new divide that threatens to further complicate already thorny negotiations, according to three EU diplomats with knowledge of the discussions… Italy is targeting the European Commission’s “Do No Significant Harm” (DNSH) rule in the EU executive’s proposed budget for 2028 to 2034, which has fueled a backlash from governments, business lobbies and the center-right European People’s Party. Critics are alarmed that these new guidelines will effectively cut out heavy industry and big infrastructure projects from EU funds over environmental concerns — potentially leading to job losses and deindustrialization.” This is an important on-going story to watch
In planning travel over the upcoming weeks, here are some useful ideas to help you along:
- Check out the Good Night Train website for the unique way to travel through Europe while you sleep.
- There’s never been a more important moment to travel right in Europe with masses of overdevelopment, cruise ships, walking pollution and captive cetaceans still hot topics when it comes to responsible tourism issues in Europe. Check out the Responsible Travel website.
- World Walks provides us with walking holidays in Europe.
- Here are 15 remarkable mountain peaks in Europe to conquer in summer.
- Cycling for Softies provides us with the 15 best cycling holidays in Europe in 2026.
Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950), engineer, mathematician, and philosopher, has an important message for how we live our life: “There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.”
EiD welcomes your views about this week’s selection of posts on the zero-carbon energy transition:
- Clean energy means security: The European Commission’s energy priorities
- New report on the false sense of security in climate risk models
- Britain’s emerging cooling divide
- Blog by Rose Morrison – Europe’s heat pump revolution: 2.9 million sales in 2025 avoid €9.7 billion in gas import costs
- The oil crisis isn’t over—the safety net is gone
- Blog by Grace Waters: What Denmark got right on biogas, and why the rest of Europe is still catching up
- New report by the European Climate Neutrality Observatory (ECNO)
- Americans are hearing about global warming in the media less frequently
- Climate, conflict and the race to 2030
- When climate change has no image
Please send your comments on any of the posts. Please recommend EiD to your friends and colleagues.
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Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 