Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organisations report.
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The UN's World Meteorological Organisation and the European Union's climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report on Monday the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources.
The continent generated 43 per cent of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36 per cent the year before, the agencies say in their European State of the Climate report for last year.
More energy in Europe was generated from renewables than from fossil fuels for the second year running.
The latest five-year averages show temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3C above pre-industrial levels, compared with 1.3C higher globally, the report says -- just shy of the targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5C.
"Europe saw yet another year of increasing temperatures and intensifying climate extremes -- including heat stress with record temperatures, wildfires, heat waves, glacier ice loss and lack of snowfall," said Elisabeth Hamdouch, the deputy head of unit for Copernicus at the EU's executive commission.
Copernicus has reported that March marked the 10th straight month of record monthly temperatures. The average sea-surface temperature for the ocean across Europe hit its highest annual level in 2023, the Europe report said.
The cost of weather- and climate-related economic losses in 2023 were estimated at more than 13.4 billion euros ($A22.2 billion).
"Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by extreme climate events in 2023, which have been responsible for large losses at continental level, estimated to be at least in the tens of billions of euros," said Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo.
Extreme weather fanned heat waves, wildfires, droughts and flooding, the report said.
High temperatures have contributed to a loss of glacier ice on the continent, including in the Alps -- which have lost about 10 per cent of their remaining glacier ice over the last two years.
Still, the report's authors pointed to some exceptions, such as how temperatures were below average in Scandinavia and Iceland even if the mercury was higher than average across much of the continent as a whole.
Australian Associated Press
