The summer of 2022 saw Europe’s worst drought in 500 years. A combination of record-breaking temperatures and low rainfall caused rivers to dry, wildfires to rage and crop failures to compound already high food prices. Elsewhere, the American west experienced its most extreme drought conditions in 1,200 years and sections of the Yangtze – China’s longest river – reached their lowest level since at least 1865 amid extreme temperatures and a “severe lack of rainfall”.