EU parliament gives standing ovation for fallen firefighter as Von der Leyen promises action on wildfires

Ursula von der Leyen says this summer of extreme heat was a "mere of preview" of the high temperatures to come.The President of the European Commission did not mince her words when she listed the many places around Europe that experienced extreme weather this summer leading, she said, to 35,000 excess deaths.In a moving moment, she introduced the family of a firefighter who died fighting flames. The parliament gave a prolonged standing ovation in honour of the fallen hero.She called the the repeated heatwaves "a summer of truth" in the annual State of the Union speech, in which policy and plans for the year ahead are laid out.She said mitigation, adaptation and preparedness must lie at the heart of Europe's approach to tackling extreme weather."

We will present a new framework for climate resilience next month. We will identify 100 of the most vulnerable territories in Europe. And we will assess the risks — and at which level they should be managed," the Commission chief recalled as 660,000 hectares were burnt to the ground and roughly 12 million tonnes of crops were lost.Von der Leyen also announced a new Climate Insurance Alliance." Today, only around 25 per cent of catastrophe losses in Europe are covered by private insurance.

This means that, far too often, national budgets become the insurer of last resort.We need to take action to close this gap," the Commission chief told MEPs in Strasbourg.This article will be updated.