Lower thirds:

00:02 Report by Steven Gislam
01:55 Liz Bentley | Royal Meteorological Society, UK

Script:

0001
The summer sun rises over Paris. Beautiful to look at... but as dawn breaks on the hottest day of the year so far... it's getting hard to bear.
0012
((SOUNDBITE) (French) SOCIAL WORKER FROM PARIS, DAVILA NAHI, 4 secs))
"I feel like going inside the fridge. Or even the freezer."
0016
Sixteen regions across France including the capital, are on red alert. Hundreds of schools across the country have also been shut. Locals and tourists are struggling to cope.
0029
((SOUNDBITE) (English) TOURIST FROM THE UK, RAFAEL SANTANA, 14 secs))
"Well, we are just tourists here, but people that are living in the city here, and I believe that the city was built not to deal with this amount of heat, so it's intense."
0044
Under such sizzling heat, a symbol of the city - the Eiffel Tower - was closed to visitors.
0051
And it's not only France. An early summer heatwave is creeping across the continent.
0058
Italy has issued heatwave red alerts up and down the country and banned outdoor work during the hottest hours.
0106
In Germany, the River Rhine is at unusually low levels for this time of year. As a major shipping route, its causing concerns about the economic consequences of such extreme heat. 
0120  
Last month was the hottest June on record for many parts of Europe. Temperatures in the Spanish capital Madrid hit the high forties.
0130
((SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Miguel Angel Sopera, 63-year-old telecommunications technician, 8 secs))
"Today is very bad, but yesterday wasn't any better than today either. So we're just surviving, nothing more. It's hard to sleep."
0139
England has seen its hottest day so far this year.... with some areas experiencing the second heatwave in the last month. 
0148
Scientists say the extreme temperatures are being caused by a heat dome. 
0154
((SOUNDBITE (English) Liz Bentley, Chief Executive, Royal Meteorological Society, 21 secs)) 
"These weather patterns, this heat dome, the waving in the jet stream are things that we've seen before. With climate change though, we've turned that thermostat, that background temperature, up a notch or two. So when we get these weather patterns, one, they tend to happen more often, they're more persistent when they happen and they're more intense. So we get higher temperatures."
0216
Experts say the world needs to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions as frequent extreme weather events become the new normal.
0226

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