At a time when the quickening pace of global heating has never been clearer, climate policies are being deprioritised

A new and ominous word has entered the vocabulary of firefighters struggling to cope with the vast wildfire sweeping through south-west France. A pyrocumulonimbus is a fire-generated thunderstorm that can whip up winds in unpredictable ways, making the containment of a blaze and assessment of its likely course far more difficult. A known phenomenon in North America and Australia, firefighters believe France is suffering its first in the Bordeaux region, as the country endures the consequences of the third major heatwave of the summer and prepares for a fourth.

The dire statistics of the ongoing fires in France and Spain tell a story of deepening devastation and human misery. A far greater expanse of French land has already been burnt this year, compared with the 30,000 hectares during the whole of 2025, while 220,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in the Gironde. In Spain, the environment ministry has calculated that over 170,000 hectares have been affected, compared with 29,000 last year. Over 100,000 people have been forced to flee.

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Spain has rejected a U.S.-backed proposal for NATO members to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP, becoming the first alliance country to oppose the plan, Reuters reported on June 19.

The rejection adds pressure to the transatlantic debate ahead of the NATO summit in The Hague on June 24–25, which has beenreduced to a single session focused on defense spending and alliance capabilities.  

In a letter to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the proposed target "unreasonable" and warned it would undermine broader European efforts to build an integrated defense ecosystem.

"Committing to a 5% target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive," Sanchez wrote, arguing it would "move Spain further away from optimal spending."

Spain estimates that its armed forces require spending equal to 2.1% of GDP to meet national military objectives, below the U.S.-endorsed threshold but above NATO's 2% benchmark.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused NATO members of underfunding their militaries, pushing for raising defense spending benchmark to 5% of GDP.

While no other NATO members have formally rejected the proposal, most have remained noncommittal. Poland, the Netherlands, and Sweden have expressed willingness to consider the 5% target.

In 2024, only 23 alliance members met the 2% target, according to NATO estimates. Poland was ahead of all members with 4.12% of GDP allocated to defense, followed by Estonia (3.43%) and the U.S. (3.38%).

Rutte said on June 17 that all NATO countries are on track to meet the 2% threshold in 2025.

Spain, governed by a Socialist-led coalition, maintains a sharply different defense posture than the U.S. administration.

While Madrid supports Ukraine, it has taken a more cautious stance on the Middle East, including distancing itself from U.S. policy on Israel.

Diplomacy in crisis: G7 letdowns reveal limits to Western solidarity on Ukraine

KANANASKIS, Canada — The Group of Seven (G7) Leaders’ Summit ended on June 17 with no joint statement in support of Ukraine, no commitments to provide desperately needed U.S. weapons, and no meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump. The Ukrainian delegation headed into the summit,

The Kyiv IndependentDmytro Basmat