London, 10 January 2022 (dpa/MIA) - The past seven years have been the warmest on record, according to the EU's climate change service Copernicus. The year 2021, like 2015 and 2018, was among the less hot of these hottest years, according to climate year data presented on Monday by the EU's Copernicus climate change service. But Europe saw its warmest summer on record - just ahead of the summers of 2010 and 2018 - with a putative record temperature of 48.8 degrees measured in Sicily standing out. It was 0.8 degrees above the previous European record. In addition, 2021 was marked by extreme weather events - such as the floods that hit Belgium and the Netherlands hard in addition to Germany in the summer. On the west coast of the US and in Canada, forest fires raged again, which not only devastated stretches of land, but also massively worsened the air quality. "The year 2021 was another year of extreme temperatures, with the hottest summer on record in Europe, heatwaves in the Mediterranean, not to mention unprecedented high temperatures in North America," Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said. "These events are a stark reminder of the need to change our ways, take decisive and effective steps towards a sustainable society and work towards reducing net carbon emissions," Buontempo said. The average annual temperature last year was 1.1 to 1.2 degrees higher than in pre-industrial times, according to Copernicus data. In the Glasgow Climate Pact, the United Nations affirmed in November that they want to stop global warming at 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times. So far, however, the countries' plans are far from sufficient.