Google and Amazon both reported rising carbon emissions for 2025 as electricity demand from AI data centres outstripped the growth of clean power, straining their net-zero pledges.
Preliminary mortality data published this week show the late-June heatwave caused 2,025 excess deaths in France and an unprecedented 39% rise in Belgian mortality, with at least 3,700 excess deaths across France, Belgium and the Netherlands combined. Luxembourg recorded its hottest June since measurements began in 1947, including a new 38.2°C June record at Findel, and forecasters warn extreme heat could return to the region in the first half of July.
Luxembourg's latest forest surveys find only about one in five trees undamaged, with beech and spruce worst hit and the national woodland now emitting more carbon than it stores.
The World Bank has extended its Climate Change Action Plan but scrapped its explicit climate-finance targets, retiring the goal of directing 45% of annual financing to climate projects after sustained pressure from the Trump administration and over the objections of European and developing-country shareholders.
Spain recorded its second-hottest June since 1961, and public-health monitors attributed more than 1,000 excess deaths to the heat — more than double June 2025. The same heat dome pushed red alerts across Luxembourg.
A record-breaking June heatwave has swept much of Europe, with France warning its death toll will keep rising and the WHO linking more than 1,300 excess deaths to the heat. Luxembourg spent much of the week under a MeteoLux red alert, with schools, construction and rail services disrupted and the government activating its heat plan.
Scientists at LIST say Luxembourg is shifting to hotter, drier summers and more violent downpours, straining drinking water, agriculture and infrastructure long after this week's heatwave ends.
Scientists with World Weather Attribution conclude the late-June 2026 heatwave gripping Western Europe — which pushed Luxembourg to a record 36.3°C and triggered a national red alert over National Day — would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.
Luxembourg recorded its hottest June day since observations began in 1947, with 36.3°C at Findel on 25 June, as a record-breaking heatwave gripped France, the UK and much of Western Europe and triggered red alerts and emergency measures at home.