You don’t need to live through a drought, a flood or a wildfire to feel the effects of extreme weather. A train that never arrives, pricier goods in the shops, a phone that goes dead or an evening lit by candlelight can bring the consequences of climate change straight to your doorstep.

Extreme weather is no longer just a problem for farmers or people without air conditioning. This year, drought disrupted freight traffic on major European rivers. Heatwaves threatened electricity generation, while storms damaged power grids and telecommunications networks.

According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), high temperatures cost the EU at least one per cent of its GDP in 2026. The agency warns that Europe must speed up efforts to adapt its infrastructure to a changing climate.

One ship = 150 lorries

One of the clearest examples this year was Germany’s River Rhine. Prolonged drought and heat drove water levels to historic lows. At Kaub, a key bottleneck on the Middle Rhine, levels fell below ten centimetres on 14 August. Cargo vessels could carry only a fraction of their usual loads. By late July, some heavily laden ships were operating at just around one-fifth of their capacity.

The disruption quickly drove up shipping costs and hit industry. Freight rates for tankers between Rotterdam and Karlsruhe climbed from around €45 per tonne in late June to €150–155 by the end of July. Companies looked to rail and road transport as alternatives, but neither had enough spare capacity. According to Germany’s construction industry, replacing a single cargo vessel can require up to 150 lorries.

Chemical companies Covestro and Evonik were among those forced to scale back production. Agricultural trader RWZ moved less than a tenth of its usual cargo volume through its Rhine terminals in July and August. Disruption on rivers, then, does not stop at shipping. It ripples through supply chains, factories and freight costs.

20,000 hours of delays

River transport was far from the only casualty. Heatwaves disrupted rail services in several European countries this year, as high temperatures caused tracks to expand and buckle. Wildfires in France and Spain also forced road and railway closures. Passengers faced delays, diversions and suspended services. According to the European Union Agency for Railways, heatwaves alone caused more than 20,000 hours of train delays across Europe between 2015 and 2024.

Six lessons learned the hard way

  • Plan for future climate conditions: infrastructure design, appraisal and maintenance should anticipate a changing climate.
  • Assess risks across systems: assessments should consider networks, dependencies, supply chains and cross-border impacts, not only individual assets.
  • Stress-test infrastructure regularly: testing can expose vulnerabilities and help prioritise investment.
  • Prepare alternatives and contingency measures: backup systems, alternative routes and early warning can limit disruption.
  • Strengthen coordination: infrastructure owners, regulators, public authorities and emergency services need clearer responsibilities and better information about dependencies between systems.
  • Combine near-term and longer-term adaptation: maintenance and targeted retrofits can address immediate vulnerabilities, alongside more far-reaching adaptation where needed.

Source: EEA

January’s Storm Kristin in Portugal offered an even starker illustration of how interconnected European infrastructure has become. Winds reaching 200 kilometres per hour damaged roads, railways and the electricity grid. More than one million customers lost power. The outages then disrupted telecommunications services, affecting around 200,000 fixed-line connections and 300,000 mobile users.

“Power supply instability was one of the principal causes of telecommunications outages,” the EEA report says. A failure in one part of the infrastructure can therefore cripple other essential services, affecting households, businesses and emergency responders alike.

When water and power run short

Heat and drought also pose a serious challenge to the energy sector. During heatwaves, electricity demand rises, partly as buildings need more cooling. At the same time, high temperatures and low river flows limit the water available to cool nuclear and thermal power plants. Water shortages also reduce hydropower generation.

The effects were visible on the Danube this year. Low river flows and high water temperatures forced Romania’s Cernavodă nuclear power plant to shut down both reactors. Together, they normally supply around one-fifth of Romania’s electricity consumption. Generation restrictions also hit Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant, which provides roughly 40 per cent of the country’s electricity. Cyprus even introduced rolling power cuts during the July heatwave.

According to European Commission estimates, the energy sector accounts for around 23 per cent of the economic losses currently caused by drought in Europe. That amounts to roughly €2 billion a year.

Annual damage: €37 billion

These are not just isolated incidents from an exceptional year. Modelling cited in an earlier EEA assessment put expected annual damage to Europe’s critical infrastructure at €3.4 billion in the first decade of this century. By the 2080s, that figure could climb to as much as €37 billion a year.

The agency says Europe needs to rethink how it plans and builds infrastructure, rather than simply fixing damage after every storm or heatwave. “Resilience cannot be secured only by repairing damaged assets,” the report says. Infrastructure planners and builders must factor future climate conditions into their decisions from the outset.

Regular stress tests, backup power supplies, alternative transport routes and better coordination between network operators will also be essential.

The report comes shortly after the European Commission unveiled its European climate resilience framework. The initiative aims to improve how Europe anticipates climate risks and protects its infrastructure and other parts of the economy.