With the year 2022 being the hottest on record in the history of meteorological measuring systems, this study explores Europe’s sensitivities and sensibilities, not just in terms of thermal indicators, in the societal context of this climate system. European temperatures are increasing twice as quickly as the world average, with a 0.9°C rise compared with the 1991–2020 reference period. How can the current climate be defined, both in terms of the atmosphere and human mentality? How are environmental policy decisions being taken in the face of drought? What is happening in terms of the attitudes, representations and habits of populations? The study has used a mixed-methods approach across Europe to seek answers to these questions. These methods are borrowed from the historical and intercultural comparison of territorial and international relations with political ecology, the quantitative analysis of data collected from the environmental module of the ISSP 2020, and a combinatory ethnography. Used together, these methodological foundations provide the sociological jurisprudence for considering Europe’s procrastination in the face of its climate commitments. Our pursuit of investigative strategies will probe modes of participation in the social worlds associated with drought through the perceptions and the symbolic and concrete commitments of individuals, national assemblies and policies, and supranational scheduling and directives from Brussels.