Europe experienced two sides of climate change last year, with wet weather hitting western countries while eastern countries became exceedingly dry, a study has found.

Some 30 per cent of Europe’s rivers were subject to “high” flooding last year, almost all in the west of the continent, Copernicus’s European State of the Climate report found. For western Europe it was one of the ten wettest years on record.

The devastating floods in Valencia in October, that killed more than 200 people, were made twice as likely by climate change, research revealed. High temperatures increase the air’s capacity to carry moisture, increasing the probability of violent storms.

• Spanish floods: King returns to devastated Valencia

The southeast of Europe, meanwhile, experienced a record-breaking 66 days of dangerously hot temperatures, as well as an unprecedented 23 “tropical” nights, on which temperatures did not fall below 20C.

Overall 2024 was the hottest year on record in Europe, continuing the trend of it being the fastest-warming continent on the planet. The hotter temperatures led to record-breaking rates of glacial retreat in Scandinavia, with glaciers losing an average of 1.8 metres of ice.

Yet the report also found that efforts to limit and adapt to climate change are gathering pace. Fifty one per cent of European cities now have climate adaptation plans, up from 26 per cent in 2018. These measures range from parks in Copenhagen that are designed to capture rainfall, to nearly 400 shady shelters dotted around Barcelona and a flooding early warning system in Glasgow.

Renewables generated a record 45 per cent of the continent’s electricity last year, up from 43 per cent in 2023. The International Energy Agency estimated that wind and solar energy, which has fallen rapidly in price in recent years, saved EU consumers £86 billion during the energy crisis of 2021-23.

Meanwhile, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a think tank, has found the increase in gas prices added seven times more to British households’ energy bills than subsidies for renewable energy.

“Think 1.3C of warming is safe?” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, referring to the level to which human activity has warmed the climate since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

“This report lays bare the pain Europe’s population is already suffering from extreme weather. But we’re on track to experience 3C by 2100. You only need to cast your mind back to the floods in Spain, the fires in Portugal, or the summer heatwaves last year to know how devastating this level of warming would be.

“In a volatile global economy, it is frankly insane to keep relying on imported fossil fuels — the main cause of climate change — when renewable energy offers a cheaper and cleaner alternative.”