“If we don’t, we shall be relying and depending on calculations from 50 years ago and from the past climate, which is no longer the same,” he said. “The climate has been warmed up.”
Zerefos said people are worried because the fires and the storms are a warning of what can happen if the country doesn’t adapt to a new reality. Storm Daniel was the worst disaster in Greece for 400 years, but could become the norm.
“After the year 2050, 2060, all of the Mediterranean will be in bad shape in terms of extreme events,” Zerefos said. “They would happen more often and with larger intensity.”
Anger at politicians
Across southern Europe the changing climate is bringing with it a new political reality. It is beginning to increase immigration from North Africa into Europe, putting a strain on Greece, Italy and the wider Mediterranean region, pushing voters to political extremes.
An election in June saw far-right parties win 13% of the Greek national vote, earning them 34 seats in Parliament; 12 of those went to the Spartans party, widely seen as a successor to the banned neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn. The ruling center-right New Democracy Party has been dragged toward the extreme right, analysts say.
Greece’s leadership has been trying to address the concerns of ordinary people most acutely affected by floods and wildfires, many of whom direct their anger not at global warming or the use of fossil fuels — but politicians.
In the capital, Athens, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke to NBC News just after securing a 2.25 billion euros ($2.4 billion) pledge from the European Union in post-flood support.
He is in no doubt about the scale of the problem.
“The fact that we are witnessing these extreme events with greater frequency means that we need to plan our civil protection in a different way,” he said. “It’s a war we have to fight with an enemy, sometimes we cannot avoid, sometimes we can contain.”
