Wildfires in France and Spain Reignite Climate Change Talks

Ashraf Patel

Wildfires in France, Spain and Italy have forced the evacuation of about 330,000 people over the past week, with Spain entering Europe’s fourth intense heatwave of the summer, attempting to contain some of the worst forest fires in the country’s history. A fire in the hilly terrain of Ávila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, burning 50,000 hectares.

As Europe faces its highest summer temperatures with scores of tragic climate-induced deaths, the spotlight is on it. For decades, they have been the de facto Green champion leader; Europe faces its moment of truth. At last year’s UN Climate Change COP in Belen, many EU nations reduced their commitments to their NDC obligations. 

As Europe faces its hottest summer on record, with thousands having died tragically, leading scientists have drawn the link to climate change; the latest heatwave pandemic in Europe has reached astronomic proportions. 

Germany is grappling with widespread disruption as a severe heatwave, which has already scorched western Europe, moves across the central and eastern parts of the continent. 

In France, hospitals remained under intense pressure in the face of heat-related emergencies, including heart attacks, heatstroke, dehydration and heat-related fatalities, leading to over a thousand deaths.

Three-quarters of France, encompassing tens of millions of people, were put under a red alert for extreme heat on Thursday and Friday as the mercury topped 40 C (104 F) in some locations, including in Paris. Britons struggled to cope last week as the record June temperature was smashed three days in a row. Friday was confirmed as the country's hottest June day on record.

This comes against the backdrop of Europe's energy giants'  oil and gas extraction and investments reaching all-time highs. According to Global Witness's latest report:

As Shell announces bumper Q1 profits of $6.9 billion, new analysis from Global Witness reveals that six of Europe’s leading oil majors – BP, Shell, TotalEnergies, Eni, Equinor and Repsol – have recorded the highest quarterly profits since 2022, when they reaped the benefits of the fallout from Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

In the first quarter of 2026, the combined $21.7 billion* in quarterly profits recorded by BP, Repsol, TotalEnergies, Eni and Equinor was 43% higher than the same period last year, reflecting a significant windfall from volatile oil prices caused by the US-Israel war in Iran.  

According to Global Witness’ analysis of quarterly filings, these six fossil fuel giants have not collectively generated this much money since Q4 2022. The three biggest European majors – Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies – have earned $252 billion since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The Energy transition, was a term coined by the German Öko-Institut in 1980 to mean transitioning from fossil fuel-based energy systems to green energy-based systems, is now a global buzzword, with many countries across the world ‘modifying their legislation and redesigning their energy schemes to speed up the transition’, The great Just Energy Transition was a narrative born and its model has been exported by Europe to the world. But this narrative is in tatters. 

The great irony is that energy and critical minerals extraction takes place amidst energy poverty in the world, mirroring the unequal economic trade and investment nexus that has characterised. Africa, with 18% of the global population, uses only 3% of global electricity and has the lowest emissions per capita of any region.

Furthermore, nearly 40% of its population lacks adequate access to energy, and 900 million people—80% of families—lack clean cooking facilities.

InfluenceMap analyses climate policy engagement activities from 15 companies of the European oil & gas and utilities sectors that have proposed or begun constructing new LNG export terminals in Africa and import terminals in the EU as of May 2023, as identified by Global Energy Monitor. The companies assessed in the research are: BP, E.ON, Enagás, Enel, Engie, Eni, Equinor, Fluxys, GALP, Gasunie, PGNiG, RWE, Shell, Snam and TotalEnergies.

In total, 13 companies were found to be directly engaged in at least one aspect of these international advocacy efforts. 

The annual AU- EU Summit over the decades have come to focus on energy investments.  Another dimension of EU- AU partnerships has concretised the  EU-Africa action support to the Africa Single Electricity Market (AfSEM), the Continental Master Plan (CMP), investments and capacity building, green energy and digitalisation.

According to the EU, “ 2025 represents a key opportunity for the two continents to deepen cooperation on energy, given the start of a new EU-AU policy and programming cycle, and preparation of the AU Energy Summit, the International Conference on Financing for Development and the 7th AU-EU Summit, combined with the South African Presidency of the G20 and its lessons on the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). Beyond this, 2025 also marked the second year of the AU’s Agenda 2063 Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan (STYMP) and a year since the AU joined the G20.“

This energy investment model with Africa is generally one of extraction and profit, and coupled with new development aid cuts, CBAM trade barriers, and diversification of supply chains, and new Critical minerals strategies for great powers, Africa is again at the bottom of the energy industrial value chain.

Furthermore, the new Hydrogen economy - extractive model is underway in Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa, being part of expensive experimentation.

In an age of unfair trade and ‘new green trade’ barriers, the EU CBAM system adds more woes for African exporters, thus stunting our industrial development and ‘kicking away the ladder to national developmental pathways'.

It is ironic given that the G20 in South Africa 2025 made solid statements on climate change, AI, and critical minerals for sustainable industrial development. 

Hence, the current EU energy-extractive investment model deepens the twin crisis of extractivism and deindustrialisation. We see grossly unjust energy futures that have grave implications for African and European citizens, as corporate profits of oil corporations reach stratospheric levels amidst price gouging in both the EU and the USA, and citizen movements mushrooming. 

But one of the more cynical developments has been the EU backtracking on UN COP and Nationally Determined Contributions NDC. Coupled with massive Development aid cuts, increased military expenditure within the EU bloc, the proto-energy-extractive investments of the EU will deepen the climate crisis. 

Climate emergencies and heatwaves have demonstrated that there are no silos or fortresses in the global trade and energy-extractive complex. If anything, the climate crisis has scientifically shown that we are indeed one planet, and  the continued energy extraction and unfair and unsustainable trade and investment model for the Global South will eventually ‘blow back to the North’

In an age of polycrisis, multiple wars and resource wars over minerals, the EU need to recalibrate its engagement with the world, especially the Global South and Africa. 

Another EU alternative must be possible in an age of Polycrisis!

* Ashraf Patel is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Global Dialogue, UNISA.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.