• Record sea temperature: 33.02°C off Mallorca on August 5, 2026, the highest ever measured in Spanish waters according to AEMET. Western Mediterranean waters are running around 4°C above the long-term average.
  • Carbon budget running out: if Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remain at 2023 levels., the Mediterranean region will exhaust its entire remaining carbon budget by 2035. Emissions would then have to fall by 6% every year from 2030 to 2050 to stay within the 2°C target.
  • Without alternative: OceanCare is calling on the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention to develop a Regional Climate Change Mitigation Action Plan based on a shared carbon budget, urgently increase the national GHG emission reduction targets and halt fossil fuel expansion.

This summer, extreme heat and drought are sweeping across Europe. Roughly half a million hectares of forests have gone up across the EU since January while national temperature records fell like dominoes in several countries. Under the surface, a second fire is burning.

On 5 August, a sensor off Mallorca recorded 33.02°C at three metres depth, the highest sea temperature ever measured in Spanish waters, according to Spain’s State Meteorological Agency, AEMET. It was not an isolated record: Copernicus confirmed that July brought record ocean temperatures across the western Mediterranean and beyond. With the Mediterranean typically not reaching its annual temperature peak until late August or early September, further records may yet follow. It’s a crisis at global scale and decision-makers have lost control.

Summer will end, but the Mediterranean’s climate trajectory will not change with the seasons: At 2023 GHG emission levels, the Mediterranean region will have used up its entire remaining carbon budget by 2035. But it’s never too late to act, and every fraction of a degree counts: OceanCare is calling on the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention to develop a Regional Mitigation Action Plan for the Mediterranean – a roadmap that tackles the root cause of this heat, focusing on reducing GHG emissions, rather than only managing its symptoms.

A hotspot in a heating world

The Mediterranean has warmed by roughly 1.5°C over the past forty years, with the trend accelerating over the last decade. The basin is now the second fastest warming region on Earth after the Arctic.

This is not simply a matter of discomfort, for marine life or for the people who depend on it. Prolonged heat has already driven mass mortality events affecting around 25 invertebrate species in the Mediterranean, from gorgonian corals to sponges and shellfish. Species from warmer waters are moving in, native species are being pushed out, and seagrass meadows that store carbon and shelter juvenile fish are under sustained stress. Every degree also lowers the water’s capacity to hold oxygen.

“A marine heatwave is not just a few unusually hot days at the beach. It is sustained heat building through the water column, often persisting long after air temperatures fall. A record set in early August, weeks before the Mediterranean normally reaches its annual peak, is especially concerning, and that retained heat can also contribute to more intense autumn rainfall when cooler air arrives“, says Carlos Bravo, Ocean Policy Specialist at OceanCare.

Storms, fires and a sea that fuels both

Scientists established that the Mediterranean episode behind the October 2024 floods in Valencia, which killed 236 people, was fuelled by sea surface temperatures 2 to 3°C above the 1982 to 2011 average. Storm Daniel, which devastated Libya in September 2023, followed the same physics.

A recent analysis by the scientific organisation World Weather Attribution (WWA), shows that human-caused climate change substantially increased the likelihood of the hot, dry antecedent conditions, extreme fire weather, and severe soil moisture deficits that together created the exceptional wildfire hazard observed in July 2026. The increasing frequency and intensity of these conditions demonstrate that such wildfire-conducive environments are becoming increasingly common across Western Europe with global warming.

This year, an El Niño event is established and strengthening and is likely adding background warmth to the system. The phenomenon fuels the existing crisis, but it does not explain a Mediterranean that has been warming steadily for four decades. Fossil fuel emissions do.

The Mediterranean has an adaptation plan – but it needs a mitigation plan, too

Mediterranean states have not been idle. The Barcelona Convention’s COP24 in Cairo adopted a Regional Climate Change Adaptation Framework and the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development 2026 to 2035. A new Regional Activity Centre on Climate Change (CC/RAC, hosted by Türkiye, was made operational. The EU has launched its Pact for the Mediterranean.

“Preparing for the consequences of climate change is essential, but governments cannot adapt their way out of an escalating climate crisis. As warming continues, adaptation becomes harder and more costly. Without urgent mitigation, we are increasingly talking about managing losses rather than preventing them. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions remains the most effective way to protect people, economies and the natural systems on which we depend”, adds Bravo.

A study by the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), commissioned by OceanCare, quantifies what that omission costs. Held at 2023 levels, GHG emissions would exhaust the region’s entire remaining carbon budget by 2035. Emissions would then have to fall by around 6% every single year from 2030 to 2050 simply to stay within 2°C. Not one country in the region is currently reducing emissions at anything close to that speed.

Meanwhile the region is paying to make the problem worse. Many Mediterranean states still subsidise fossil fuels using public money. The region draws 76% of the energy it consumes from fossil fuels. And still some of the Mediterranean Range States continue exploring new fossil fuel deposits in the seabed or even reverse their national legislation to ease up oil and gas exploration, such as Italy.

The plan the Mediterranean does not yet have

OceanCare is calling on the Contracting Parties to develop a Regional Mitigation Action Plan on Climate Change for the Mediterranean, guided by the region’s remaining carbon budget and backed by binding protocols. It rests on three commitments:

  1. Agree a regional carbon budget: the Contracting Parties should define how much CO2 the Mediterranean may still emit by 2050 in line with the Paris Agreement, and how that budget is shared between them.
  2. Cut emissions now: every tonne avoided today lowers the near-vertical curve the region faces afterwards.
  3. Stop fossil fuel expansion in the Mediterranean: no new exploration, no new extraction, no new export capacity. The Regional efforts through the Barcelona Convention shall be fully aligned with the targets of the Paris Agreement.

“21 countries and the EU have agreed on how to live with the climate crisis. They have not agreed to stop fueling it. These states share this sea and not one of them can cool it down alone. What is missing is neither the science nor the forum. It is the decision to act together”, says Nicolas Entrup, Director of International Relations at OceanCare.

The Mediterranean is home to around 540 million people, roughly a third of them living on the coast. The sea that is currently at 33°C off Mallorca is the same sea that supports fisheries, tourism and coastal communities across the Mediterranean. It is not a regional curiosity, it is a precursor – and unless we act, the records will keep arriving faster than we can count them, and these extremes will become the new normal.

Further information

About OceanCare

OceanCare is an international marine conservation non-governmental organisation, founded in Switzerland in 1989. The organisation pursues the protection and restoration of the marine environment and marine wildlife with a strong policy focus, combining research, conservation projects and education. OceanCare’s remit includes marine pollution, climate change, marine mammal hunting and the environmental consequences of fisheries. Its work is supported by a team of scientific, legal and policy experts, and involves strategic collaboration with civil society organisations and coalitions around the world. OceanCare is an officially accredited partner and observer to several UN conventions and other international fora.