Summer 2021 tracked unprecedented number of wildfires in the Mediterrenean area. Watch the current situation with EFFIS maps

The number of wildfires recorderd an unprecedented new peak this Summer 2021. To prevent this phenomenon, EU Member States, as well as other associated countries, established the European Forest Fire Information System(EFFIS). EFFIS consortium is responsible for the protection of forests against fires in the EU and neighbor countries and provides the European Commission services and the European Parliament with updated and reliable information on wildfires in Europe. The Current Situation Viewer application on the EFFIS website displays on a map the fires counted by satellites orbiting on the Northern emisphere.*

Summer 2021, based on the forecasts analyzed by the consortium experts, will mark a new negative peak compared to the average trends recorded in past summers as shown in the chart below.

source:https://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/apps/effis.statistics.portal/effis-estimates/EU

* The MODIS sensor, on board of the TERRA and ACQUA satellites, identifies areas on the ground that distinctly hotter than their surroundings and flags them as active fires. The spatial resolution of the active fire detection pixel from MODIS is 1 km. The VIIRS sensor on board of the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) uses similar algorithms to those used by MODIS to detect active fires. The spatial resolution of the active fire detection pixel for VIIRS is 375 m. Additionally, VIIRS is able to detect smaller fires and can help delineate perimeters of ongoing large fires.

An overview on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

 The IPCC Panel was established during its inaugural session taking place in Geneva from 9th to 11th November 1988. The Memorandum of Understanding between  UNEP and WMO signed in 1989 lists the objectives of the panel:

    1) To make assessments of available scientific information on climate change;

    2) To make assessments of environmental and socio economic impacts of climate change;

    3) To formulate response strategies to meet the challenge of climate change.

The Panel to fulfill its objectives constituted three Working Groups, responsible to respectively pursue each of those objectives, the joint IPCC Secretariat, based in the WMO headquarters in Geneva, and the IPCC Bureau in charge for supporting the activities of the three working groups.

The following factsheet summaries the activities carried out by the Panel since its constitution.

Covid-19 pandemic crisis and the smart working revolution

The World Health Organization, once the coronavirus illness reached 118,000 cases in over 110 countries and territories around the world declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11(Time Magazine)

As a consequence, social distancing measures were, by no mean, implemented worldwide by governments to slower the virus run and, various business sectors, in particular those ones based on services creation and delivery, started relying on smart working practices for their employees.

Smart working is not a novel concept or standard. Constant technological developments are making possible new approaches changing the traditional professional relation of an employee with the workplace and their work responsibilities and performance. 

For instance, the UK government published in 2013 a guide to promote the so called the Way We Work 3W initiative in support of smart working in the public sector.

However, the current pandemic crisis has definitely boosted this practice and what appeared to be a secondary phenomenon has gain momentum.

Definitions of smart working

https://www.unece.org.net4all.ch/fileadmin/DAM/stats/documents/ece/ces/ge.58/2017/mtg4/Paper_11-_Di_Nicola_rev.pdf

https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/european-ai-alliance/project-eu-xxi-or-how-lead-ai-world-open-letter-european-parliament-european

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-way-we-work-tw3-best-practice-guidelines-for-smarter-working

http://www.flexibility.co.uk/downloads/TW3-Guide-to-SmartWorking-withcasestudies-5mb.pdf

Statistics

Reference 

Chart from research report jointly published in 2017 by ILO and Eurofound working anytime, anywhere: the effects on the world of work. 

The abbreviation T/ICTM stands for Telework/ICT-mobile work.