In this photo taken on Wednesday, May 15, 2019, tourists enjoy the sun in beach chairs on the car-free environmental island of Langeoog in the North Sea, Germany. Concerns about climate change have prompted mass protests across Europe for the past year and are expected to draw tens of thousands onto the streets again Friday, May 24. For the first time, the issue is predicted to have a significant impact on this weekÕs elections for the European Parliament. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press

LANGEOOG, Germany — Hungry tourists stream into the glass-fronted balcony of Michael Recktenwald’s restaurant on the German island of Langeoog, with its splendid view of the North Sea and the blue skies above.

The 53-year-old has lived on Langeoog for most of his life, and his wife’s family has been there for generations, but Recktenwald fears their children may not be able to stay if the world keeps on warming.

Concerns about climate change have prompted mass protests across Europe for the past year. For the first time, the issue is expected to have a significant impact on this week’s elections for the European Parliament.

Recktenwald pointed to the damaged levees protecting the island, which is part of the Frisian Archipelago off the coasts of Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. Islands like Langeoog are among the regions most vulnerable to the rising sea levels predicted to result from climate change.

“The sea level has already risen and storm surges are getting more violent,” he told The Associated Press. “The chain of dunes is being attacked more strongly, endangering our freshwater supply.”

A recent opinion poll in Germany showed that climate change has overtaken immigration as the issue voters in the EU’s most populous nation are most concerned about. Elsewhere across the EU, climate change also features prominently among the top issues — along with immigration and the economy — ahead of the European Parliament vote that began Thursday and runs through Sunday in all of the bloc’s 28 nations.

“In many countries, the climate issue has become increasingly one of the top issues that voters are concerned about when they talk about European issues,” said Derek Beach, a political scientist at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. “In Denmark, for example, this year it’s really almost the only issue that people are talking about in relation to the European Parliament election.”

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg inspired a ‘Fridays for Future’ school strikes movement in her native Sweden that’s spread across Europe, bringing tens of thousands to the streets demanding faster action on climate change. The Extinction Rebellion direct action group upended traffic across London for days to press the point. Both cite spiking temperature records and dramatic warnings from scientists as reasons to act now to fight global warming.

Yet what remains an abstract threat to most Europeans has become very real to Recktenwald.

“We’re directly affected,” he said, walking past beachgoers enjoying the sun from behind the wicker windbreaks that are a signature of German coastal resorts.