The recent spate of powerful hurricanes that devastated several Caribbean islands and pummelled homes from Florida to Texas, along with monsoon floods in south Asia that killed more than 1,200 people, have brought the spotlight back on the link between such extreme weather and global warming.
While the debate continues to rage about the tenuous connection between climate change and hurricanes, the people and places ravaged by the wrath of Harvey, Irma and Maria, or a deadly drought in Australia, or the unending floods in south-east Asia, are all testimony of unprecedented weather systems disrupting human lives with alarming frequency. The number of extreme natural disasters around the world has quadrupled since 1970. Most climate experts agree that while global warming does not create hurricanes, it certainly makes them deadlier — the growing intensity of the storms and the recurrence of once-in-100-years hurricanes every season are handy proof of the same. Whether it’s droughts in Kenya, record winter sun in Britain or unprecedented rains in China, climate scientists have now begun to connect the dots with more precision that ever before. The nature-induced devastation that we continue to witness across the world is therefore a wake-up call for all of us.
The Paris Agreement made a crucial breakthrough last year in uniting nations with conflicting priorities to commit to a common programme to combat climate change and signalling an eventual end of the fossil fuel era. While most of them continue to forge ahead with their ambitious goals, the denial and dithering of the US in the process could derail the exercise. The world must now put aside all partisan differences and unite to fight climate change and protect our environment – or ultimately risk the very existence of humanity.
