Andrea Ferrini’s troubles in 2023 began with a rare frost in April that halved production. The following month, rain and floods swept through the region, killing 15 people, causing billions of euros in damage and severely affecting agriculture.

According to the agricultural association Coldiretti, more than 5,000 farms are flooded in the region, accounting for a third of Italy’s fruit harvest, including Ferrini’s small farm.

“Floods mean that plants are in the process of vegetative recovery (from the cold), are water stressed, and are in crisis,” says Ferrini.

Then came the heat, with record temperatures recorded in many parts of Italy over the past week.

“We are being hit hard by a heatwave that puts crops under stress. This is also because nighttime temperatures don’t drop below 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit), which doesn’t allow plants to grow normally,” he said.

A severe hailstorm dealt the final blow to much of his fragile crop.

“The climate is too hot. We have very warm seas and every time there is a cold spell we have thunderstorms, strong winds, hail and these are becoming more and more frequent in the Po Valley,” he said.

Farmer Andrea Ferrini is on the front lines against climate change in Italy and that is taking its toll.

First, his fruit trees and corn in northern Italy withered in frost, then they were hit by torrential rains and record flooding, followed by an unusual heatwave and finally hail.

“It was definitely a disaster year,” Ferrini said. “Monetizing my farm is becoming difficult with this changing climate. Even planning for the coming years has become really difficult.”

Ferrini, 52, has owned a farm in the fertile Emilia-Romagna region since 2003. He has 15 hectares (37 acres) of vineyards and fruit trees, which produce kiwis and peaches, and also grow corn.

Normally, he can harvest about 1,000 quintals (100,000 kg) of fruit and grapes every year, but this year he wishes to harvest no more than 200-300 quintals.

“I’m discouraged, but I don’t give up,” he said, bowing as his pent-up emotions surged.

A leading climate scientist said he was “very pessimistic” about how much the world would reduce emissions to limit average global temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial levels.

Professor Robert Watson, of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change, told the Today Program that failure to do so would lead to more heat waves, floods, sea level rise, crop failures and health problems.

Almost every country on Earth signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius but otherwise, to at least 2 degrees Celsius.

According to Professor Watson, eight years later, emissions continue to rise and current policies have put us on track towards warming of around 2.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

Many countries including the UK have committed to net zero – balancing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere with absorptions – but most have taken several decades to get there.

The UK has committed to net zero by 2050 but Professor Watson, who served as Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a scientific adviser to the UK and US governments, said current emissions need to be halved by 2030 to have a chance of meeting the Paris targets.

“I think most people fear that if we abandon the 1.5C target, which I don’t believe we will achieve – in fact I am very pessimistic about achieving even 2C – but if we allow the target to get looser and higher, governments will do even less in the future,” he said.

“We need to try to convince governments to start acting rationally now and reduce emissions. But even governments with really good goals, like the UK, don’t have the right policies, don’t have the financial resources to achieve those goals.”

Scientists have warned that allowing average global temperatures to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius could trigger irreversible tipping points that cause the Earth to heat beyond our control to dangerous and unpredictable levels.

In recent years, climate change and rising global temperatures have caused record heat waves around the world – with the latest forecast suggesting temperatures across southern Europe will rise this week.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has warned that Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland could experience extreme conditions.

The impact of the heat wave led to intense wildfires in Spain that forced people to evacuate.

Greece also closed the Acropolis during the hottest part of the day, while Italy issued a red warning for hot weather for many major cities.

Simon Calder has outlined travelers’ rights to cancel if they don’t want to travel in record-breaking temperatures across Europe.

It comes after the State Department (FCDO) issued warnings to those traveling to Spain, Italy and Greece, that extreme temperatures are affecting these regions.

FCDO officials advise travelers to check information on the hottest regions and seek advice on how to stay healthy in the heat.

If a traveler decides not to travel due to the usual thermal terms and conditions that apply and they will not be able to cancel without penalty, independence travel reporter explained.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has forecast the heatwave will intensify by midweek, with a spokesman saying independence Last week’s “above-normal temperatures” are expected to continue into next week.

Ele Hands, Deputy Director of Meteorology at the Met Office, said the same thing independence The heatwave across Southern Europe and North Africa is expected to “prolong and gradually increase” throughout the next week, with the focus moving gradually towards southeastern Europe. The weather agency said parts of Greece, Turkey, southern Spain, Italy and surrounding islands will reach temperatures as high as 45 degrees Celsius.

Wildfires across Greece were largely contained on Thursday after burning forests and dozens of homes in days, despite a new heatwave that threatened to cause firebox conditions across the country.

A fire west of Athens that prompted mass evacuations earlier in the week has been contained, a fire brigade official said. Firefighters, supported by water bombers, remained on the scene in case the flames flared up again.

On the island of Rhodes, firefighters continued to battle blazes that broke out in a wooded mountainous area and forced people to evacuate.

The Greek meteorological service has warned of an increased fire risk from Thursday, as the country recovers from the first major heatwave of the summer.

A second heatwave is forecast to begin on Thursday, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas and further on Friday with a maximum temperature of 44 degrees Celsius.

Land and air firefighting forces will continue to patrol preventively in forests across Greece in difficult conditions, authorities said late Wednesday.

Fires are common in Greece, but hotter, drier and windier summers have turned the Mediterranean into a wildfire hotspot in recent years.

The Mediterranean region is grappling with soaring heat that could hit a new European record as soon as this week.

Temperatures are expected to exceed 40C in some parts of Spain and Italy in the coming days.

Spain, Italy and Greece have experienced scorching temperatures for several days, damaging agriculture and sending tourists running for shade.

Amidst the intense heat waves this year and last, concerns about Europe’s rapid warming caused by the climate crisis have grown.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world, according to a report released this year by the World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The continent has warmed twice as fast as the global average over the past four decades.