Deadly floods in Pakistan, record-breaking heat waves in China, famine-causing droughts in parts of Africa, and unusually hot temperatures in the U.S., Europe and Australia: The impact of human-induced climate change is being felt across the world, with experts warning that extreme weather events are no longer the exception but rather becoming the new norm.
“In an unrelenting cascade of heat waves, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake outbursts, flood events and now the monster monsoon of the decade are wreaking nonstop havoc throughout the country,” Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Climate Change Sen. Sherry Rehman said Saturday as Islamabad declared a state of emergency in response to the “serious climate catastrophe” affecting the South Asian country.
Water and heat
Since mid-June, Pakistan has been battered by widespread flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains that have upended the lives of millions. The earlier-than-usual monsoon season, which has affected all four of the nation’s provinces, has already claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people and led to mass evacuations in several parts of the country, resulting in the loss of property, infrastructure and livelihoods.
Only a few months earlier, in March, Pakistan had witnessed the exact opposite weather phenomenon, as large swaths of the country saw temperatures rise as high as 50 degrees Celsius — the warmest for the month in 60 years — with the hot, dry weather impacting water supplies, agriculture and the health of both humans and animals.
The unusual heat, coupled with below-average rainfall, also resulted in a reduction in crop yields and helped melt snow and ice in the mountainous regions of Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkwa, triggering at least one glacial lake outburst flood, according to the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization.
Neighboring India was also affected, with the WMO saying that the country recorded its warmest temperature for March on record, with an average maximum temperature of 33.1 C, or 1.86 C above the long-term average.
The organization noted that the extreme heat was made “30 times more likely because of climate change,” adding that such heat waves and humid heat stress will be more intense and frequent this century in South Asia, one of the world's most densely populated regions.
The forecast is not limited to South Asia, however, with scientists expecting hot and dry weather to become increasingly common and severe in many other parts of the world.
“In the future, these kinds of heat waves are going to be normal. We will see stronger extremes. We have pumped so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that the negative trend will continue for decades. We haven’t been able to reduce our emissions globally,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, said in late July.
“I hope that this will be a wake-up call for governments and that it will have an impact on voting behaviors in democratic countries," he added.
China’s hottest summer
India’s neighbor, China, has been experiencing a mix of record-breaking heat waves, severe drought and deadly rainfall since June, in what the WMO has coined the “summer of extremes.”
“The weather and climate situation in China is severe and complex, with extreme temperature and drought in the south and high precipitation in the north," said WMO Assistant Secretary-General Dr. Wenjian Zhang. "The superimposed situation of drought and flood has brought challenges to disaster prevention, mitigation and relief work.”
According to the China Meteorological Administration, the south is experiencing its longest and most intense heat wave since complete records started being kept in 1961, breaking the 2013 record of 62 days by Aug. 15. Some 1,680 meteorological observatories have recorded temperatures above 35 C across an area of 4.5 million square kilometers, or almost half of the country's total land area.
Moreover, the incidence of temperatures above 40 C has been the largest on record, noted the WMO.
Most of the provinces and cities along the Yangtze River have experienced low precipitation, with some places seeing less than 80% of the normal rainfall amount, resulting in moderate to severe drought, power cuts, reduced economic activity and a high risk of forest fires.
According to data from China's Ministry of Emergency Management, the drought alone affected 5.527 million people in July and caused a direct economic loss of 2.73 billion yuan ($395 million).
In contrast, large parts of northern China have seen unusually heavy rainfall, with flood disasters occurring in the Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces and in the western provinces of Sichuan and Gansu, according to the WMO.
Horn of Africa drought
Meanwhile, drought-stricken parts of the Greater Horn of Africa are bracing for a fifth consecutive failed rainy season, worsening a regional crisis that is already impacting millions of people.
In particular, the drought-affected areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are forecast to receive significantly below-normal rainfall until the end of the year, noted the WMO, adding that the rainfall deficits are likely to extend to parts of Eritrea, most of Uganda and also Tanzania.
The October to December season normally contributes up to 70% of the annual total rainfall in the equatorial parts of the Greater Horn of Africa, particularly in eastern Kenya.
The drought is the longest seen in 40 years and temperatures are expected to remain above average across most of the region. As a result of the back-to-back droughts, humanitarian agencies and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa have raised the alarm on the number of people suffering from acute food insecurity this year, which now stands at over 50 million.
Unprecedented high temperatures accompanied by drought, wildfires and stress on health care systems, are also affecting parts of Europe, Australia and the United States.
As the climate becomes warmer, the frequency and severity of extreme weather events will increase, so we could say that heat waves, droughts and floods are going to be normal in the future, said Atsushi Goto, a climate expert at the WMO.
To mitigate the effects of climate change, Goto emphasized the need for governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement.
At the same time, he pointed to the importance of developing and implementing measures to enhance preparedness and reduce risks and negative effects.
Some of these measures include “heat action plans” such as those developed by India and Pakistan in the aftermath of previous heat waves. The plans involve issuing hot weather early warnings, disseminating information on the risks of exposure and how to protect people against extreme heat, preparing health care professionals to tackle heat emergencies, and increasing access to potable drinking water and cooling spaces.
Security issues
In addition to weather events, climate change also impacts the global geopolitical landscape, particularly the Asia-Pacific region, where it could aggravate existing security issues and, at worst, give rise to new and unpredictable threats.
As sea levels continue to rise, small islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans as well as coastal megacities in China, South Asia and Southeast Asia are already at risk. Some could even see much of their territory become uninhabitable over the coming decades.
“There is undeniable evidence from conflict zones and hot spots around the world indicating that climate change is a major driver of violence,” Maldivian Defense Minister Mariya Ahmed Didi said in June, warning that as the world enters never-before-seen climate conditions, conflicts are likely to become “more frequent, more widespread and far bloodier.”
The Maldives is not alone with these concerns. In fact, a survey released last year of 57 global climate-security experts revealed a consensus that the risk from climate change-exacerbated events affecting global security will become more severe within the next two decades.
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