Climate and water are our destiny
In a new study, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) fears that the Paris target of 1.5 degrees will be exceeded within the next five years.
That would already make it warmer than it has been in the last 450,000 years. The culprit is not only man-made climate change, but also the natural weather phenomenon El Niño. This development will have far-reaching consequences for our health, our food, global water management, animals and the entire environment. The UN estimates that already in the next decades several hundred million climate refugees will wander over our planet.
Water and climate are our destiny
The harbingers of this development are becoming increasingly clear: the USA and Canada are experiencing one heat record after another, as are China, India and Australia. Hamburg, too, measured over 40 degrees in 2022. Three degrees above the previous record.
Water is becoming scarce in more and more regions. In India, dead birds fell from the sky. The Po River in northern Italy was almost completely dry last summer. Freighters could only partially pass the Rhine. The sun softened the asphalt of airport runways, causing partial air traffic cancellations. Forests burned in half of California, but also in Bordeaux, in Spain and Portugal, in Saxony and Denmark, in China and near London.
In 2022, there was drought in Somalia, in Ethiopia, in South Sudan, in Bangladesh and in northern India, and there will be drought in 2023. Just now in Italy, billions in damage and 13 deaths from flooding. The mayor of Ravenna: “My city is partly unrecognizable”. Globally, long-term unpayable climate damage.
As a journalist, one can hardly keep up with the climate catastrophes. And it is becoming more and more catastrophic globally. One day half countries dry up and the next day neighboring countries sink in floods like Pakistan in 2022. There, over 30 million people were affected by the floods, while in India millions suffered from the heat and thousands died.
Our planet is no longer as it once was. We are still living at 1.1 degrees warmer than in the pre-industrial era around 1850, but how will our children and grandchildren have to live if we do not stop climate change. We still have the chance to organize the solar energy turnaround in such a way that it will only briefly be more than 1.5 degrees warmer than in the pre-industrial era. But this grace period is running out.
The current German dispute about the heat turnaround starting in 2024 will still be one of the smallest problems. An epoch in human history is coming to an end. And faster than most of us imagine – says science.
- WMO „Global temperatures set to reach new records in next five years“
- Heatwaves and Fires Scorch Europe, Africa, and Asia
Source
Franz Alt 2023 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
