athens greece on sunday battled four major wildfires that have forced hundreds to evacuate as soaring temperatures there and in spain raised fears of more blazesscientists say humaninduced climate change is amplifying extreme weather including the heatwaves droughts and floods seen in several parts of the planet in recent weeks and say these events will become more frequent and more intensethe international community has agreed that climate change poses an existential threat to human systems and the natural world but there are a myriad ways to take actionearths average temperature has warmed just over 11 degrees celsius 34 degrees fahrenheit since the industrial era and the united nations says it is currently on track to warm some 27c this centurygreece is in the grip of a heatwave that began on saturday and is expected to last 10 days temperatures were set to rise to 42c in some regionsfire brigade spokesperson yiannis artopoios told a briefing on sunday evening that greece was facing an explosive cocktail of drought high temperatures and strong windsfires raged in the north east and south of the country including on the tourist island of lesbos where around 200 people were ordered to leave the village of vryssa on sunday to escape the flameselderly women left the village carrying a few possessions in plastic bags as thick smoke engulfed the first houseson saturday residents and tourists were told to leave the islands beach village of vaterain the northeastern region of evros hundreds of firefighters battled a wildfire that has been ablaze for four days in dadia national park known for its black vulture colonyevros governor dimitris petrovits told athens news agency the authorities were doing all they could to protect locals and treat injured wildlifein the south a fire in the peloponnese caused the evacuation of three villages and a childrens summer camp while on the island of crete a fire was raging inside a ravinein spain a heatwave that has persisted for two weeks was expected to produce recordhigh temperatures of 45c in the southern region of cordobathis part of andalusia registered spains highestever temperature 477c only last yearthe national weather office said the relentless heatwave since july 9 and the lack of rain since the start of the year across the iberian peninsula meant there was an extreme risk of firesin all fires in france spain and portugal have already burned more land so far this year than was destroyed by flames in all of 2021 the area some 517881 hectares 128 million acres is equivalent to the size of trinidad and tobagothe world health organization said on friday europes heatwave had led to more than 1700 needless deaths in spain and portugal alonefirefighters in britain were battling blazes in london on sunday days after the mercury climbed to 403c and smashed the countrys temperature recordthe london fire brigade said it was dealing with more incidents than usual with 205 personnel and 28 fire engines deployed to tackle