JAPAN PERSPECTIVE

Tokyo, May 28, 2026. The exceptionally early heatwave sweeping Western Europe has caught the attention of Japanese media, which are deciphering a familiar phenomenon: that of recurrent extreme temperatures now bearing the clear imprint of climate change. According to Japan Today, the UK has broken a century-old temperature record for two consecutive days, with 35.1°C recorded at Kew Gardens in London – erasing the previous record of 32.8°C dating back to 1922. In France, the thermometer reached 36°C in the southwest, temperatures 10°C above seasonal norms. Drownings have been reported in Britain and France, where residents were seeking to cool off in water bodies.

French meteorology has identified a 'heat dome,' a phenomenon in which an anticyclone traps heat above a region, producing 'tropical' nights – temperatures not dropping below 20°C – even in the British capital. Peter Thorne, director of the ICARUS climate research center at Maynooth University in Ireland, stated unequivocally: 'We know with absolute certainty that such heatwaves have become more probable and severe due to climate change resulting from our greenhouse gas emissions.' He added that some of the records broken, particularly in the UK and France, were 'stunning.'

This European sequence occurs as a joint report by the World Meteorological Organization and the UK's Met Office predicts that global average temperatures will approach near-record levels in the next five years, with a high probability that the 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels will be temporarily exceeded between 2026 and 2030. Scientist Melissa Seabrook summarized the finding: 'The window for maintaining a 1.5°C average is closing rapidly.'

In Japan, the issue resonates strongly. The archipelago has experienced its own devastating heatwaves: the 2018 summer killed over 1,000 people, classified as a natural disaster by the Japanese government; 2019 prolonged this deadly trend. Drawing on this memory, Japan's Meteorological Agency (JMA) has precisely announced a reform of its disaster alert system on May 28, 2026, reorganizing alert levels from 1 to 5 for four types of risks – floods, heavy rainfall, landslides, and marine high tides – to improve readability for local authorities and the population. This reform, two and a half years in preparation, illustrates how Japan continuously adapts its extreme climate management devices.

The convergence between the European heatwave and Japan's own vulnerabilities to heat confers a pedagogical dimension to the event in Japanese media: Europe, long perceived as relatively spared from these extremes, joins a list of regions where warming demands urgent adaptation of prevention and alert systems.