Record high temperatures across Western Europe

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1:17Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service, coming to you live from London. I'm Rajini Vaidyanathan. Now, in 2014, in France, a weather presenter named Eveline Deliat did a weather report predicting the weather in August 2050.

1:40And tomorrow morning, temperatures will be high with 26 degrees in Paris, Pépinon and Nice. In the afternoon, temperatures will reach or rise above 40 degrees, 41 in Aon, 41 in Strasbourg, 40 in the capital, 42 in Lyon and up to 43 degrees expected in Nîmes. You may say, come on, this is just fiction for 2050. Well, this weather report is not a product of my imagination. It's been developed with great seriousness by Matteo France. Indeed, well, France has already hit those high temperatures that she talked about there. 24 years before those predictions were due to come into effect. Now, the country has recorded its hottest ever night Monday into Tuesday, and the heat has led to a number of deaths in the country.

2:33We'll be live in France in a moment. Heat weather warnings have also been issued across other parts of Western Europe, in Italy, Spain and here in the UK. Today in London, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sounded a warning about those soaring temperatures. And here in London, the city of Dickens, it is clear that our world is facing a tale of two crises. A climate crisis pushing us deeper toward higher temperature and closer to catastrophic tipping points. And an energy crisis exposing the folly of a world hooked on hydrocarbons. Well, I'm joined now from Nice in France by the BBC's Pierre-Antoine Denis.

3:19Good to talk to you, Pierre. I've just seen that the Eiffel Tower is going to be closed because of these soaring temperatures. Just tell us how this is all affecting the country. Yeah, it's been affecting the country massively, Regini, especially since the weekend when this heat wave started and temperature started to soar. We've had 40 people that have died as a result of drowning since Saturday. The big Fête de la Musique, Music Day on Sunday was impacted with authorities trying to enforce an alcohol ban, which didn't really work. But nowadays, we're seeing now a bigger plan at the end of an emergency crisis meeting from the government this morning, which resulted in a deeper plan in terms of maintaining the health care system all across France as a result of this heat wave.

4:15because there is a fear that we could have a repeat of 2003 when 15 ,000 people died as a result of a long sustained heat wave all across the summer. Pierre, you mentioned deaths there. We did hear from the Prime Minister, didn't we, about the number of people who've died in heat-related deaths? Yeah, absolutely, yes. So 40 so far, which are as a result of drowning or other incidents. We've had, for instance, the tragic situation where an 11-year-old boy was drowning and the 13-year-old, his friend, wanted to save him and both of them drowned in the centre of France. These situations have been dotted all around the country and could appear again should these temperatures stay on or reappear in the summer.

5:02That's the fear from the government. But I've been trying to put in place some messaging all across the news channels here in France and among the public broadcasters to try to showcase what to do and more importantly, what must not be done when it comes to these heat wave and also to only go and bathe in places which are allowed. As in many, many cases, we're seeing situations where people went to bathe in places where it was not allowed or at least there was no security there. OK, Pierre-Antoine Denis, thank you very much for bringing us up to date on that heat wave in France. We're going to stay in France because the record heat there is having far-reaching consequences.

5:46The Golfec nuclear plant in the south of the country near Toulouse has been forced to switch off a reactor because of those rising temperatures. Like many other nuclear plants, it relies on nearby river water to absorb heat generated during energy production. That's then discharged back into the water at a higher temperature. But when it's really hot, the water can't be pumped back out as it can threaten local biodiversity. Well, Paul Dorfman's a scientist from the University of Sussex. He spoke to us from Paris and told us why this matters. Nuclear cannot operate without cooling water and discharge of cooling water.

6:24And so basically what we're seeing now is it's like a canary in a coal mine. It's the beginning of what will happen. The rivers with climate will low flow, they will heat, and the reactors will increasingly have problems both with getting river water, because that water may be wanted elsewhere, but also essentially discharging that heated water back to the river because it would kill the river. How unusual is it then to see a nuclear plant shot down because of a situation like this? Well, it's happening more and more. It's happened over the last few years, and we're beginning to see it more and more.

7:04So at risk would be reactors like Bougie, Saint-Albert, Vyderone, Tchikistan. Basically, what we're seeing is the beginning of this happening. This is the start of what will happen to inland nuclear, both in France and elsewhere. And are there no ways to mitigate this, to protect from this, given that temperatures are rising? What can be done? You know, you see these large cooling towers emitting what is essentially just steam. You know, people think it's smoke, it's not, it's steam. And so there's some potential to build larger cooling towers and to try to sort of get around this. But essentially, no, there's no real technical way around it.

7:48There's no solution to this problem. And all that implies for inland nuclear going forward. How serious is this, given that more than 60 % of France's electricity is generated by nuclear power? It's hugely serious. The problem is almost, one can never say never, insoluble. And that goes for inland reactors and of course by the coast what we know about the coast is that the coasts are receding we know the climate is impacting sea level rise which we hope will be stepwise but the real problem with the coast is what's known as storm surge where certain atmospheric conditions meets high tide and the sea basically moves up and inland and what we know the models predict quite securely that, say, in the UK, when the UK government and EDF are about to construct size, we'll see a new large nuclear power plant.

8:49We know that by the time that plant will have been constructed, that nuclear plant will be almost cut off by storm surge flood water at least once per year. So we know that there are both problems inland and by the coast. That's Paul Dorfman there. Well, let's now get the perspective of a climate scientist on all of this. Ed Hawkins is the Professor of Climate Science at the University of Reading here in the UK. Welcome to NewsHour, Professor. How unusual are these temperatures that we're currently seeing across Western Europe? The temperatures we're seeing now, they're highly unusual. We're going to, in the UK, we're going to absolutely smash the June temperature record, which was set all the way back in 1976.

9:40And we're going to break that by about three or four degrees over the next few days, which is a pretty extraordinary event. How dangerous are these kinds of temperatures? They're exceptionally dangerous for the vulnerable and the people who may struggle with their health. But they're also exceptionally dangerous for those who are still healthy, especially if you're trying to be productive at work, for example. or if you're trying to take exams in stifling exam halls at school, your concentration will not be what you might hope it would be. And if you imagine trying to recover in a hot hospital ward, also these heat makes it much harder to do.

10:14And what's driving these rising temperatures? Well, it's a very clear answer. What we're seeing is that our emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily from burning fossil fuels, is fuelling this massive rise in temperatures during extreme heat waves. and if we do not act to reduce our emissions drastically to net zero over the coming decades temperatures will just get hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter until we do reach net zero emissions. And in terms of some of these governments we heard from the Prime Minister of France earlier for example I mean how are governments responding to this challenge particularly when in some of these countries they're not as accustomed to such high temperatures as other parts of the world perhaps?

11:02So you know in the UK we have to do two things we have to adapt you know our society and the infrastructure on which it's you know is based is built for a climate that no longer exists and so we need to adapt we need to install air conditioning for example in our hospitals and our schools and our homes and our workplaces but we also need to take actions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and that's a global problem it needs global solutions it needs every country to step up and reduce their emissions over the coming decades and the UK and Europe can certainly lead in that. And how much time do we have?

11:41Well it's all about if the quicker we do it the less bad it gets as I said you know the heatwaves will just continue to get hotter and hotter and hotter until we reach net zero. And so it's entirely in our hands how hot things get. It's all about our choices that we make over the coming decades. And when you look at the rest of the world, of course, because we see other countries also experiencing high temperatures, what do you observe that's perhaps different from this particular heatwave in Western Europe? Well, I mean, as you say, we're seeing heatwaves all over world. We're breaking temperatures in every part of the world every year, it seems.

12:20It is a global problem. We are seeing countries like China step up. They are building more renewable energy than the rest of the world put together. There are solutions to tackle this problem and we need to enact them. What are those solutions? I mean, we often talk about these summits and leaders promising to reduce net zero and those kinds of things, but are they drastic enough? As I said, you know, it's all about our choices. The quicker we reach net zero, the less bad things we'll get. And so, yes, we do need to scale up our renewable energy production. It will provide every country with energy security and cheaper energy as well.

12:57Batteries are going to play a huge role in this by removing the need to have that base load from fossil fuel sources. So, no, the solutions are already available and often they'll be cheaper than the fossil fuel sources we currently rely on. And just one last question, what can we do ourselves as well to protect ourselves from this intense heat when many people don't have the luxury of saying, well, I'm not going to go home, I'm going to stay home or I'm not going to go to work? So, you know, if you're at home, then you should close your curtains, keep your windows shut during the day to stop the heat coming in, drink lots of water, stay hydrated and keep yourself as cool as you can and check on those around you who are perhaps more vulnerable.

13:39Check on your neighbours and your friends. And then also you need to talk about what you're feeling and what you are taking, the personal actions that you are taking to look after yourself today, but also the actions you're taking to reduce your own emissions going forward. Thank you very much. Lots to get through there, wasn't there? Ed Hawkins, Professor of Climate Science at the University of Reading. Thank you very much for joining us here on NewsHour.

14:11Coming up, a newly discovered manuscript by Mozart. This is really amazing. This is one of the most important discoveries of the last decades. Mozart, when he was in Paris in 1778, composed a piece for harp and flute with an accompaniment for the orchestra. And we have a letter by Mozart from this time to his father where he talks about this. That interview with the director of the Salzburg Library coming up in a few minutes from now. A reminder of some of the other headlines we're watching in the newsroom here. Lebanese media says Israeli soldiers have opened fire on a group near a bulldozer clearing a road in the south of Lebanon, killing two people.

14:55And Kenya's government's complied with a court order to immediately halt the construction of an Ebola treatment facility intended for American citizens.

15:09Now let's take you to the United States. And in recent months, the Trump administration's been on a bit of a renovation spree. His team have paved the famous Rose Garden, redesigned the White House interiors and done up the ballroom. And very recently, given the iconic reflecting pool, the long body of water in front of the Lincoln Monument, a makeover as well. Well, those$14 million changes to the reflecting pool, which saw it drained and refilled, were described by the president as beautiful. But the pools continued to be plagued by algae problems and it's developed issues with the deep blue paint that President Trump added to its bottom.

15:50Well, five people have been arrested for vandalism in connection with the reflecting pool. That's according to the US Park Police. Well, Daniel Lippman is White House and Washington reporter at Politico. Good to talk to you, Daniel. Just take us through all of this then. Why were people arrested over the pool? The people who were arrested were for varying reasons, and they haven't really released the charges. But it looks like they were even touching the pool, kind of taking a little bit of a souvenir potentially. But Trump has said yesterday, oh, these people had brought knives and fertilizer to mess up my project, and we haven't seen any evidence of that yet.

16:28And just tell us about the renovation of the reflecting pool. I've seen it, I know it well, but I haven't seen it since he's had this refurb. So what does it look like and why so much controversy over it? So what's interesting is that the reflecting pool has long had issues with algae for the last hundred years, because this is a shallow pool of water, It bakes in the sun and the piping and drainage and plumbing system has really not been upgraded for a very long time. So Trump, ahead of the 250th anniversary of the country, he wanted he painted this all blue on the bottom. But when you do that, it creates it.

17:12It adds up the increases the temperature and the heat in the pool. And so it seemed to create more algae. and it looked like a fetid pool of green from airplanes where they had news photographers taking pictures of it. So it was not in line with the beautification of Washington that Trump always talks about. And he's been quite vocal about this. I mean, he's got a lot on his plate, but he's had the time to comment on this, hasn't he? Yeah, this is in line with his adding, trying to add the White House ballroom, doing the big arch on your way into D.C. from Virginia. But of course, Republicans would rather have him talk about the economy and get on the road to sell his economic agenda, because they know most people are not going to vote based on the colour of the water in Lincoln Memorial Pool.

18:03I mean, just looking at some of the arrests, I've seen reports of people who say they were arrested just for walking past the pool and weren't actually vandalising it. So have you got to the bottom of any of that? Yeah, these seems to be like trumped up charges on some of this stuff. They even arrested a former Olympian. And so if they touched the water, they considered that vandalism, I guess. Yeah, he said he touched a piece of the peeling paint and was detained as a result for five hours, I think. This is a kind of a question of the law enforcement priorities in the Trump administration, because we thought they were going to focus on violent criminals and not people touching a pool.

18:46Indeed. And just a very quick final thought on all of this. I mean, this is all, as you say, part of the buildup to the 250th anniversary of America. How much is all of this playing into the wider debate over how it should be marked? I think it's a part of that. But also one of the big elements of the story is some of the money ties where one of the contractors for this pool project was a big Trump donor. And so that's kind of where you see, you know, follow the money. And of course, it's not a democratic donor getting this project. And so that was kind of ironic. Okay, Daniel Littman, thank you very much for taking us through all of that.

19:30Now, how's this for a discovery? You're a librarian at the National Library of France, going through old notebooks and manuscripts, and then you find something truly special. lessons on composition by none other than a 22 year old mozart well that find by francois pierre a curator at the library documents mozart's teachings with a student including seven previously unknown compositions for the flute and harp well those works were played publicly for the first time on sunday at the national library of france performed by flautist mathilde calderini and harpist nicolas tuye

20:21Francois sent that discovery to his colleague Armin Brinzing, the director of the Mozart Library in Salzburg in Austria. I've been speaking to him about it all. With this manuscript, there's no name written on it, no title. So it was in the shelves for many, many years. And my colleague just went on cataloging it thoroughly. And so he discovered that there's Mozart involved. I mean, that's incredible, isn't it, Armin, that this notebook was just kind of lying around in the dusty archives. And this goes back to a 22-year-old Mozart. Yes, exactly. Yeah, this is really amazing. I'm really sure this is one of the most important discoveries of the last decades.

21:06yeah we know that Mozart when he was in Paris in 1778 composed a piece for harp and flute with an accompaniment for the orchestra and the person who commissioned this work he played the flute himself and his daughter played the harp and so he commissioned this work and this work is very well known, K299, a very famous piece by Mozart. And we have a letter by Mozart from this time to his father where he talks about this. And it's really fascinating. Here in this letter, he writes about his composing lessons he gave to this young woman, Marie-Louise Philippine de Bonnières de Guinée. and he explains in detail how he tries to teach her how to compose.

22:06The father, for whom Mozart composed this work for harp and flute and orchestra, wanted Mozart to teach her how to compose works for the two instruments, for flute and harp. So that's why he paid Mozart to give her lessons in composition. So in this manuscript, Mozart tries to teach her how to compose. He does it in different ways and it fits perfectly to what he writes in his letter. So we find this also in the manuscript. He gives her a task, for example, writes one part and she has to add another part to the composition and so on. And so it's a mixture of Mozart and his pupil. And it's very exciting to compare the two handwritings and to see what he writes in his letter.

22:53This is, by the way, also the earliest document we have of Mozart being a composition teacher. We only knew of other manuscripts from his time in Vienna, but this is the earliest one. And also very special in this case is that we do not only have the manuscript, which he worked on together with his pupil, we also have this letter where he describes the method, how he tries to teach her composing and what he thinks about her abilities. With these pieces for harp and flute, there's a lot of her in those compositions. Often we see Mozart writing the beginning of the work and then she has to continue or several points where he does not like what she composed and just crosses it out and writes something different, of course, more interesting.

23:42So it's really a collaboration of the two in those works. I imagine just finding that notebook in that dusty library. That's Armin Brindzen, the director of the Mozart Library in Salzburg in Austria.

24:20promise of a better, freer, richer life. But is it still attainable? I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise.

25:05Welcome back to NewsHour. Disabled people are the most unfairly treated minority in Germany. That's according to one former member of Parliament there, who says it's especially the case in the world of work. The unemployment rate amongst disabled people is twice that of people with no disability. And when they do find work, they tend to be paid less than the minimum wage and work in places without the usual rights and protections often. Well, Amy Zayed's one of the very few disabled journalists working in Germany. She asks what can be done to make the country more inclusive.

25:42this is a small group and we have here people with severe disabilities and a very high need of assistance so right now you see this is what in germany we call a a workshop for disabled people some 300 000 disabled germans work in places like this one in Paderborn. The boss, Carla Bredenbals, shows me their gardening project. I think this project is a nice project because it shows that for us it's not always about working, it's about developing people. But these workshops are controversial in Germany. The disabled people who come to work here are often making goods for commercial companies but are paid less than the minimum wage.

26:29There is no group that experiences more discrimination than people with a disability. Hubert Hüppe is one of the most prominent critics of the workshop system and of the way disabled people are separated from the rest of society. He says this separation begins early. In principle, once you become part of this segregated system, you never get out of it. So you'll go from a special kindergarten into a special school and then into one of those sheltered workshops. The workshops are supposed to prepare people to work in the mainstream economy. But only 1 % of people in workshops ever make it to what we might call a regular job.

27:13Carla Bradenballs acknowledges that this is too few. I know that the critics are there, that there's only 1 % of people going back to the first market. and I do think also that that's way too low. Here in Dortmund, they are holding what they're calling an Inclusionsmesse. It's a trade fair for inclusion companies. An inclusion company is one where 30 % of the workforce is made up of disabled people. The director of the authority behind this event is Georg Luhnemann. He told me that at a time of economic difficulty in Germany, disabled people were an essential resource. We see a real opportunity in the labour market for people with a disability in terms of skilled workers because a huge number of businesses are looking for people and we're trying to get a foothold in that market.

28:11The German government says that it's working on legislation to reform the workshop system. This, it says, would enable more people than today to move into the mainstream economy. Well, you can hear from Amy Zayed on this week's edition of Assignment. That's here, of course, on the BBC World Service.