A heated battle over the climate! An opinion piece by Dominic Memmel

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The first severe heatwave of 2026 has swept across Europe, leaving in its wake many thousands of deaths, countless tonnes of spoiled fruit, parched fields and record-breaking temperatures both on land and at sea. It has even brought tram services in Leipzig to a standstill, a development we were able to read about in the numerous heatwave updates across Germany.

The landscape has also changed on a meta-level: we have now definitively entered a weather era in which the consequences of climate change no longer appear sporadically or in isolated situations, but over longer periods, across vast areas and so clearly that denying climate change (and the political clinging to fossil fuel energy production) can only be explained by deliberate malice or severe cognitive problems.

During the heatwave, I got the impression – anecdotal evidence – that the shock within society runs deeper than is visible on the surface of the climate debate, which continues to flounder aimlessly. And that could be a real game-changer.

Were it not for … Ever since I’ve been able to pronounce ‘Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation’ without a hitch, there’s been talk within the climate movement that all it would take is this one massive climate event for society to finally understand. After the 2021 Ahr Valley disaster failed to live up to this expectation, the idea increasingly took hold that our society is incapable of grasping anything, ‘… if it wasn’t even shaken awake by the Ahr Valley disaster!’

This notion is, of course, nonsense, because the Ahr Valley disaster was a singular, local event and could not possibly have raised such awareness on a wider scale. Awareness does not arise from watching the ‘Tagesschau’; it arises from direct experience. This time, the climate situation is fundamentally different, for in terms of its palpable intensity, this heatwave can be regarded as ‘the Ahr Valley across the whole of Europe, over a prolonged period’: it lasted a hell of a long time and could be felt everywhere.

Pointless appeals

Nevertheless, the usual suspects have once again proved themselves to be the spearhead of communicative cluelessness. Katherina Reiche was called upon to resign in all manner of social media posts, whilst in a dehydrated delirium people rambled on about ‘Merz must learn his lesson!’ , and Friedrich Merz was urged to remove Katherina Reiche from office – with the explicit aim that he should actually do so.

The basic idea may not be all that wrong, but without backing from industry (“The business community!”) and with the usual tone of a supplicant (“Dear Chancellor…”), it is, as expected, a futile shot in the dark. One of many, by the way. In the climate debate, one is reminded not of the bare-knuckle struggle for survival we are (or should be) waging right now, but of a Protestant summer camp in Swabia in the 1980s.

What might we learn from this?

But that’s old hat – something that will annoy me for the rest of my life, but which has now taken up enough space here. Let’s move on to what we can learn from this heatwave and how it can benefit the climate debate. Only… what could that be?

Instead of playing down the impact of a heatwave on the debate by labelling it a ‘silent killer’, we should bear in mind that a heatwave is experienced first-hand by everyone in the affected area: Everyone is sweating and struggling to sleep, granddad collapses in the garden, trams in Leipzig are out of service, fridge shelves remain empty, and much more besides. It is this immediate experience that makes issues resonate with people – studies and disasters in faraway places simply cannot do that.

The shared experience of everyone in a wider community ensures that this experience is not swept under the carpet, but becomes a major, widely discussed topic – studies and disasters in distant places cannot achieve that either. With the first heatwave of 2026, after a long wait, we finally have this immediacy on our side in the climate debate. And this summer brings at least two further advantages that should definitely be harnessed for the climate debate:

1. This year’s El Niño – sensationally dubbed the ‘Super’ or ‘Godzilla’ El Niño by the media – has drawn the attention of the wider public to climate research early in the year. We can see very clearly here that ‘Climate doesn’t go viral!’ is a half-truth that would be better translated as ‘Climate studies and the climate movement’s public relations efforts don’t go viral!’. If climate issues are presented in an engaging way, they certainly do go viral.

2. Whilst the World Cup – the biggest media event on the planet – is taking place, this event (as of 29 June) is threatened by a heatwave whose scale is at least on a par with the European heatwave of June 2026. The World Cup is already a battle against the elements, as predicted, for example, by climate researcher Friederike Otto back in May. Or by Thomas Helmer a year ago.

The climate crisis becomes part of everyday life

So we can see: times have changed; the climate crisis seems to have finally made its way into the everyday lives of even the not-so-marginalised average European. We are no longer jumping from one isolated event to the next; we are feeling the change almost daily, with the ‘Godzilla El Niño’ also set to play a role in the coming months. Perhaps even a role that will go down in history as a milestone in the brief but intense story of a collapsing climate: From this point on, it became palpable for everyone.

Let us not be tempted to give those few deluded fools and malicious lobbyists – who will continue to try to deny absolutely everything – more attention than their little toe deserves, with feigned alarm. This wretched tactic of focusing on trivial details works just as poorly with the AfD as it does with climate crisis deniers. Let us also guard against falling into egocentric know-it-all behaviour (“See, I was right!”) and endless moralising grumbling.

Instead, let’s engage people where they’re personally affected: by the collapse of public transport, by the frustration over cancelled World Cup matches, or simply by the burnt lovage that had been thriving so well until now.

And anyone who’s never had a friendly, relaxed chat with ‘Diesel-Dieter’ about the climate crisis in the allotment during a heatwave should definitely make up for this experience, which is instructive for both sides. You’ll not only learn a lot about communication, but also about the benefits of cold egg liqueur when the air temperature is 39°.

Dominic Memmel, born in Würzburg in 1980 and based in Leipzig since 2014, works as an activist, communications consultant and podcaster. Visit the author’s page.