Mayor overseeing a green regeneration in city where temperatures can already surpass 40C. ike every Athens mayor, Kostas Bakoyannis is acutely aware of the illustrious heritage of one of the world’s oldest cities. After all, he says, it is busts of Pericles and his mistress Aspasia that adorn the entrance of the neoclassical town hall. From the windows of his cavernous office, he can glimpse the Parthenon through the jumble of concrete buildings and antennas.

But Bakoyannis prefers to talk about the present, not least his plans for fountains, parks and trees – antidotes to the afflictions of more modern times.

“When you’re the mayor of Athens you are not in dialogue with history,” he says. “You’re in dialogue with the problems, needs, aspirations and hopes of present-day Athenians and anyone who might visit Athens even for a day.”
In conditions often likened to a pressure cooker, temperatures can surpass 40C (104F) in the summer. “Our models show annual mean temperatures across the Mediterranean increasing by up to 2C over the next 30 years,” says Christos Zerefos, a professor of atmospheric physics. “In the summer the air temperature will rise by more than 3C. Ecosystems will suffer.”
Bakoyannis, the scion of a political dynasty, was elected to the post in 2019. He knows time is of the essence.
An analysis of 571 European cities by Newcastle University in 2018 predicted it would experience the worst increases in severe drought and heatwaves by 2050. In a similar study, the ratings agency Moody’s also ranked the Greek capital highest in terms of exposure to rising temperatures. With heatwaves likely to become more frequent and extreme, it forecast that Greece’s credit strength would also become “sensitive to climate change …. [particularly] if heatwaves were to depress tourist activity”.

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