---
title: "Wildfires and heatwaves sweep Europe: 350.org calls for stronger taxes on fossil fuel profits"
date: 2026-07-07T13:12:42Z
modified: 2026-07-07T13:12:42Z
permalink: "https://350.org/press-release/wildfires-and-heatwaves-sweep-europe-350-org-calls-for-stronger-taxes-on-fossil-fuel-profits/"
type: press-release
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 175531346
author: kimbryan
---

As wildfires rage across Portugal, Spain, Greece and France, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes and even disrupting the Tour de France, 350.org is calling on European governments to make the fossil fuel industry pay for the crisis it caused.

France is now facing its third heatwave in less than 2 months, and it is still only early July. Southern France has not seen this scale of wildfire damage at this point in the season for at least two decades, with more than 11,000 hectares already burned in the region. More than 20,000 hectares have burned across the continent as a whole. In the Pyrénées-Orientales, more than 10,000 people were evacuated as an exceptional blaze swept through the region near Perpignan, while Tour de France organisers were forced to ban spectators from a stage threatened by the flames.

There is a bitter irony to that disruption: TotalEnergies is an official partner of the Tour de France for 2026, 2027 and 2028, sponsoring the very race that extreme heat and wildfires, fuelled by the fossil fuel industry it belongs to, are now disrupting.

The fires come just weeks after an unprecedented June heatwave that scientists at the World Weather Attribution group said would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, and which was linked to thousands of excess deaths across Europe, including more than 2,000 in France in a single week.

For 350.org, this run of crises confirms what the organisation has been warning for months: unfortunately, the scientists’ warnings are proving to be true, and it’s the people who can least afford it who are paying the price, unable even to afford to stay cool, while oil and gas companies rake in record profits.

**Fanny Petitbon, France Country Manager at 350.org, said:**

“What we’re living through this summer isn’t a warning anymore, it’s a bill, and the poorest households are getting it first: people caught in heat traps with no way out, families who can’t afford to run a fan while the country burns and entire villages are being evacuated. Meanwhile, European governments have failed to cut emissions and protect their citizens, and let the fossil fuel industry keep banking colossal profits from the very crisis companies such as TotalEnergies knowingly fueled. It’s time to make polluters pay: we’re demanding stronger, permanent taxes on fossil fuel profits immediately, to fund the energy transition, pay for adaptation and force these companies to repair the damage they have caused. This is far worse than we feared. Inaction is a cost we can no longer afford.”

350.org has spent decades campaigning for the kind of urgent climate action that could have prevented summers like this one. Making polluters pay isn’t a punitive measure, it’s the only way to fund the scale of adaptation and protection now needed, and to stop leaving that bill with ordinary people.

350.org is calling on the French and European governments to:

- Make polluters pay for climate damages and adaptation, rather than leaving taxpayers and the poorest households to foot the bill by implementing stronger, permanent taxes on oil and gas’ companies’ profits at the national level, immediately
- Invest in infrastructure that can protect people from heatwaves and wildfires that are only growing more frequent and more severe.
- Champion “Polluter Pays Tax on Fossil Fuel Profits” in the UN Tax Convention negotiations

### **About 350.org**

350.org is a global movement working to end the fossil fuel era and build a world powered by clean energy accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Join a media briefing hosted by [350.org](http://350.org/): Fuel on Fire: Reporting El Niño and the True Costs of Climate Change 8 July 2026 16:00 BST[ Online registration here ](https://350org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Acv_INlnTAm09gK4-1IQ0w)

![](https://350.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/climateimpactsbanner-2-700x394.png)