Calling for global action to limit the devastating consequences, the head of the United Nations said “billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic – wilting under increasingly deadly heatwaves”.

Extreme-heat events have been getting more frequent, intense and longer-lasting in recent decades as a result of human-made climate change.

Guterres’ appeal comes as the record for the world’s hottest day was broken twice on consecutive days this week, according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Monday beat Sunday, with the global average surface air temperature reaching 17.16 Celsius, as parts of the world sweltered through fierce heatwaves from the Mediterranean to Russia and Canada.

Guterres said the UN had just received preliminary data indicating that Tuesday “was in the same range”, which would make a third hottest straight day on record, if confirmed.

In a speech, he noted that heat – driven by “fossil fuel-charged, human-induced climate change” – is estimated to kill almost half a million people a year, about 30 times more than tropical cyclones.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, December 1, 2023. COP28/Christophe Viseux/Handout via REUTERS

This year alone, extreme heat struck highly vulnerable communities across the Sahel region, killed at least 1,300 pilgrims in Mecca during Hajj and shut down schools across Asia and Africa affecting more than 80 million children.

“And we know it’s going to get worse. Extreme heat is the new abnormal,” Guterres added in his speech to journalists at UN headquarters in New York.

The Secretary-General’s “call for action” brings together ten specialised UN agencies for the first time in an urgent and concerted push to strengthen international cooperation in addressing extreme heat.

Focus on most vulnerable

Guterres listed four areas where greater efforts could be made to keep people, societies and economies safer from the negative consequences of rising global temperatures.

He emphasised the importance of “caring for the most vulnerable” – with those at greatest risk including poor people in urban areas, pregnant women, people with disabilities, the elderly, children, those who are sick and people who are displaced from their homes.

Households living in poverty often live in substandard homes without access to cooling, he added, appealing for a boost in access to low-carbon cooling and expanded use of natural measures – which include planting trees for shade – and better urban design, alongside a ramp-up of heat warning systems.

Graphic from Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change

Workers also need more protection, he said, as a new report from the International Labour Organization warned that over 70 percent of the global workforce – 2.4 billion people – are now at high risk of extreme heat, especially in Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Arab States.

The UN is calling on governments to urgently review laws and regulations on occupational safety and health to integrate provisions for extreme heat, including the right to refuse working in extreme hot weather.

Energy transition and adaptation

A third area targeted by the UN for action is making economies and societies better able to withstand heat, through stronger infrastructure, more resilient crops, and efforts to ease the pressure on health systems and water supplies.

“Countries, cities, and sectors need comprehensive, tailored Heat Action Plans, based on the best science and data,” Guterres said.

Lastly, the UN chief urged stepped-up action to “fight the disease”, by phasing out fossil fuels “fast and fairly” including no new coal projects, with the aim of limiting global warming to 1.5C – a goal nearly 200 governments signed up to in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” he emphasised. “In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future.”

The United States, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK have issued two-thirds of the global number of oil and gas licences since 2020, according to research published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development this week.

‘Still time to act’

Commenting on the UN’s call to action, Alan Dangour, director of climate and health at Wellcome, a UK-based science foundation, noted that people working outside in physical jobs and those who cannot afford to adapt to rising heat are particularly exposed – but the effects are far broader.

“The levels of heat we now routinely see around the world put every part of society under extreme pressure, directly harming our health while also affecting food and water security and much of our vital infrastructures,” he said in a statement.

Speaking to journalists on Thursday, scientists convened by Wellcome said there are positive measures that can be taken to combat the problem of extreme heat, which can also bring wider social benefits.

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For example, they explained that using community facilities as cooling centres can offer older people a place to chat or play cards, tackling social isolation and heat stress at the same time. Or adding shades with solar panels to market stalls can help women traders keep working on hot days while also providing free electricity for their businesses.

“There is still time for concerted action to save lives from the impacts of climate change, but we can no longer afford to delay,” Dangour said.

A construction worker drinks water while working on a building during hot weather in Pristina, Kosovo, June 19, 2024. (Photo: REUTERS/Valdrin Xhemaj)

The UN’s call for action points out that existing tools to reduce the devastating consequences of extreme heat could be deployed with large and far-reaching effects. Guterres said the good news is that “there are solutions… that we can save lives and limit its impact”.

For example, a global scale-up of heat health warning systems could save more than 98,000 lives every year, according to the World Health Organization. And the rollout of occupational safety and health measures could avoid $361 billion a year in medical and other costs, the ILO has estimated.

The UN chief urged a “huge acceleration of all the dimensions of climate action” as global warming is currently outpacing efforts to fight it. That could start to change, he added, as heatwaves, impacts on public health and disasters such as Canada’s wildfires are now hitting the richest countries as well as poorer ones.

“The heat is being felt by those that have decision-making capacity – and that is my hope,” he said.

(Reporting and editing by Matteo Civillini and Megan Rowling)

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There are few moments in life that count forever. Choosing who (and if) to marry, becoming a parent, buying a house… Before all of these come the last years of the Greek Lykeio (senior high school) and the critical final exams held during the month of June. The grades one gets at the end of those three years give shape to all the life milestones to come.  

This year’s exams – especially their final days, June 11-13 – were for sure memorable… Temperatures soared to 43C in the month of June in much of the country – an unprecedented occurrence in our lifetime, which forced us to go through this important rite of passage at the end of high school in unbearable conditions.  

Difficulty to focus and breathe, dry mouths during oral exams, stifling heat slowing one’s handwriting, and temperatures that the human body cannot endure for long – these were not the ideal conditions for a successful graduation.  

But the heatwave that messed up our graduation exams is not just bad luck. It is the result of very bad decisions. Recent studies have attributed Greece’s searing heat and ensuing wildfires of the past years to climate change. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that the burning of fossil fuels is a primary cause for the excessive heating and rapidly rising temperatures.

Saudi visa crackdown left heatwave-hit Hajj pilgrims scared to ask for help

This year’s heatwave was not only intense, but earlier than in previous years. As schools close for three months in the summer when the summer heat is high, there is normally not much need for air conditioning and most public schools don’t have more than ceiling fans to cool off.  

The climate crisis has become an unfair obstacle to our individual prospects, affecting our entire generation across countries and continents. Of course, we will work hard to go through all the precious moments that life can offer, but it will be impossible to look back at this boiling month of June and ignore how badly it impacted our grades – and our future.  

This might be a year that fossil fuels, and the companies that profit out of them, stole our opportunity to make memories and build a bright future. 

Climate chaos hitting children

What we have missed in Greece this year pales in comparison to what others around the world have lost. Millions are displaced by floods in Bangladesh, while wildfires and storms claim victims from the Caribbean to China and Canada.  

Children are often those more severely affected: we’re living through a global decline in the provision of education, with the number of children missing out on schooling inflating to a quarter billion. Extreme heat waves, fuelled by fossil fuel companies, threaten our generation’s future. In our times, the climate crisis is no longer just a warning. It is a harsh reality that is affecting our daily lives. 

Climate chaos is real – and we are already facing its impacts. Yet governments have failed to move beyond fossil fuels and continue to depend on oil and gas companies, whose profits have been going strong, at an average of $3 billion a day for the last 50 years.  

UK court ruling provides ammo for anti-fossil fuel lawyers worldwide

Big oil and gas majors like Shell, TotalEnergies, and ENI have known about the impacts of climate change for decades. Yet even though they kept making record profits – they never devoted their talents and resources to fix the problem. They didn’t use their political ties to ring the alarm bell. They rather invested millions and millions in greenwashing and denial.  

Many others knew as well. Even our grandparents knew the lines of Greek singer Cat Stevens (today Yusuf Islam): “You roll on roads… pumping petrol gas… But they just go on and on and it seems that you can’t get off.” It was impossible to ignore.  

Now it’s definitely time to jump off the fossil fuel wagon. Our generation must devote all its energies to raise awareness of how climate chaos is affecting us all, and to mobilise more people to support climate and environmental action. Alternatives must be pursued, and historical polluters must pay for all that they’ve taken from us – including our future. 

The post To keep its profits, Big Oil stole our future  appeared first on Climate Home News.

Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh has been sweltering under 52°C heat in recent days. Not in the news however is that wet-bulb temperatures in the region – a more accurate indicator of risk to human health that accounts for heat and humidity – passed a key danger threshold of 30°C.  

Climate change is increasing the risk of deadly humid heat in developing countries like Pakistan, Mexico and India, and without international support to adapt, vulnerable communities could face catastrophe.  

What is wet-bulb temperature? 

Wet-bulb temperature is an important scientific heat stress metric that accounts for both heat and humidity. When it’s both hot and humid, sweating – the body’s main way of cooling – becomes less effective as there’s too much moisture in the air. This can limit our ability to maintain a core temperature of 37°C – something we all must do to survive. 

A recent study suggests that wet-bulb temperatures beyond 30°C pose severe risks to human health, but the hard physiological limit comes at prolonged exposure (about 6-8 hours) to wet-bulb temperatures of 35°C. At this point, people can experience heat strokes, organ failure, and in extreme cases, even death. 

Climate change and deadly heat 

Globally, around 30% of people are exposed to lethal humid heat. This could reach as much as 50% by 2100 due to global warming. To date, the climate has warmed around 1.3°C as a result of human activity, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels. And along with the extra heat, with every 1°C rise the air can hold up to 7% more moisture. 

A comprehensive evaluation of global weather station data reveals that the frequency of extreme humid heat has more than doubled since 1979, with several wet-bulb exceedances of 31-33°C. Another recent study predicts a surge in the frequency and geographic spread of extreme heat events, even at 1.5°C warming.   

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What this shows is that the humid tropics including monsoon belts are all careening towards the 35°C threshold, which is very worrying for countries like Pakistan. The city of Jacobabad has already breached 35°C wet bulb temperatures many times. More areas of the country are likely to be exposed to such life-threatening conditions more often due to climate change.   

At 1.5°C of warming, much of South Asia, large parts Sahelian Africa, inland Latin America and northern Australia could be subject to at least one day per year of lethal heat. If the world gets to 3°C, this exposure explodes, covering most of South Asia, large parts of Eastern China and Southeast Asia, much of central and west Africa, most of Latin America and Australia and significant parts of the southeastern USA and the Gulf of Mexico.  

Areas of the world that will experience at least one day of deadly heat per year at different levels of warming   

Source: ScienceAdvances 

 Even at 1.5°C of warming, there will be high exposure to lethal heat in large regions where billions presently live. This terrible threat to human life calls for urgent action to limit warming and help at risk communities adapt.  

Adapting to hard limits 

 While 35°C can prove deadly, one study suggests a 32°C wet-bulb threshold as the hard limit for labour. More realistic, human-centred models found this overly optimistic, as direct exposure and other vulnerability factors were ignored. Vulnerable groups including unskilled labourers would be most at risk of losing their income.  

In densely populated urban centres, lethal humid heat is not just a future projection but a current reality. This calls for urgent adaptation measures which integrate the risk of deadly heat into urban planning, public health, early-warning systems and emergency response.  

Investments in green spaces, heat-resilient buildings and urban cooling are vital adaptation strategies. Community initiatives like awareness campaigns, indigenous cooling strategies and local heat action plans are also essential. Households could consider investing in cooling technologies or migrating – options mostly available to the wealthy.  

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As climate change makes lethal humid heat a growing threat in some of the world’s most populous areas, more attention must be paid to understanding its risks – especially in vulnerable regions with huge data gaps. This demands a multidimensional response that combines scientific research, policymaking and community engagement.  

The potential scale and level of risk to human life also reinforces the importance of ensuring that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C global warming limit is met. To do this, we need to halve emissions by 2030. Countries should therefore strengthen their 2030 emissions targets in line with the warming limit as they prepare equally ambitious 2035 targets in updated NDCs. 

The Pakistan heatwave is a terrible reminder of this often-underestimated threat. We must act now to limit warming while we adapt to the growing danger of deadly heat if we are to avoid potentially wide-reaching tragedies in the future.  

The post Developing countries need support adapting to deadly heat appeared first on Climate Home News.

Bear in mind it’s mid-winter in this part of the world. And it’s far south enough that seasonal variations have a substantial impact on temperatures. Buenos Aires, for instance, is as far south as Japan, Tibet or Tennessee are north.

In terms of deviation from temperatures you might expect at a certain place and time of year, this heatwave is comparable to, if not greater than, the recent heatwaves in southern Europe, the US and China.

In Vicuña, one of the towns in the Chilean Andes that recently reached 38°C, a typical August day might be 18°C or so – just imagine it being a whole 20°C warmer than normal wherever you are now.

No wonder some climate scientists have already suggested this could be one of the most extreme heatwaves on record.

What’s causing the extreme heat?

Over the past six days, a persistent area of high pressure, or anticyclone, has lingered to the east of the Andes. Also known as a “blocking high”, this appears to be the key driver of the intense heat.

Blocking anticyclones can drive heatwaves in three main ways. Firstly, they pull warmer air from closer to the equator towards them. The system also compresses and traps the air, heating it up, as was the case for the 2021 heatwave in the Pacific Northwest, which shattered the Canadian temperature record by nearly 5°C. Finally, the high pressure means there is little ascending air and hence little cloud cover. This allows the sun to heat the land continuously during the day, building up heat.

However, scientists need to analyse the meteorology of this unprecedented event in more detail to gain a more complete understanding.

El Niño made this more likely

The Chile-Argentina heatwave may have been made more likely by the developing El Niño in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño events, which typically occur every four years or so, are characterised by warm sea surface temperatures in the central-to-eastern tropical Pacific. Temperatures in the central Pacific are currently about 1°C above average for the time of year.

These warmer ocean temperatures make air more buoyant over the central Pacific, causing the air to rise. This drives changes to atmospheric circulation patterns further afield. El Niño-induced changes to atmospheric circulation typically mean higher pressure and warmer winter temperatures for this part of South America.

Climate change made it worse

The blocking system driving the extreme heat would probably have led to warm temperatures even in the absence of anthropogenic climate change. However, the rapid warming of climate change allowed the heatwave to become truly unprecedented.

Climate scientists expect to see temperature records broken as our planet continues to heat up. This is because the distribution of possible temperatures is shifting higher and higher.

Chile has already experienced the effects of climate change recently through a severe heatwave in February – late summer – resulting in several deaths from wildfires, as well as a decade-long mega-drought. The country recently rejected a rewrite of the constitution which would have mandated its government to take action against the nature and climate crises.

The longer-term impact of a winter heatwave

The hottest temperatures now appear to have largely subsided in the Andes. However, temperatures are still well above average for northern Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, and will remain so for the next five days or so.

The impacts of winter heatwaves are less well understood than summer heatwaves. For Chile, the most likely impact is on snowpack in the mountains, which provides water for drinking, agriculture and power generation. Any melting of the snowpack will probably also affect the diverse flora and fauna found in the Andes.

Overall, this heatwave is a startling reminder of how humans are changing Earth’s climate. We will continue to see such unprecedented extremes until we stop burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Matthew Patterson is a postdoctoral research assistant in atmospheric physics at the University of Oxford in the UK.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The heatwave across much of northwest, central and southeast China has lasted 72 days and counting. The previous record set in 2013 was 62 days.

The Chinese Meteorological Administration said the heatwave up to 15 August had been the “strongest” since records began in 1961 and the “coverage of the temperature of above 40C has been the largest in history”. High temperatures persist in many provinces.

Chinese and international experts blame climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.

Chen Lijuan from the National Climate Center told state media on Saturday: “Against the backdrop of global warming, heatwave will be a ‘new normal.’ The high temperature starts early, leaves late and lasts long, this will become more and more obvious in the future.”

A map of the number of high temperature days 1 June to 15 August 2022. Darker red means more high temperature days. (Photo: CMA)

Climate attribution expert Friederike Otto told Climate Home: “Heatwaves in China have definitely become more common and more intense as well as longer in duration because of human-induced climate change.”

While the heatwave has hit large areas of China, the central province of Sichuan has been worst affected. Danson Cheong, a reporter from The Straits Times, said that the soles of his shoes had melted in the heat in Sichuan’s main city Chongqing while Sohu reported that a field of grapes in the province had dried to raisins in the heat.

Chongqing is forecast to stay hot for the rest of the week before cooler, wetter weather arrives.

Hello from Chongqing, where it is 43 degrees Celsius and the heat has literally melted the soles off my feet pic.twitter.com/dNDfeOLpZa

— Danson Cheong (@dansoncj) August 22, 2022

Rainfall has been low. The hot and dry conditions have helped wildfires to spread. One Chongqing resident posted on Weibo yesterday: “The air smelled of smoke all night… when I woke up in the morning, the balcony was full of soot and large piece of things that blown over and scorched by the wind.”

The drought and heat have damaged crops too. According to data released by China’s Ministry of Emergency Management on Thursday, the drought caused a direct economic loss of 2.73 billion Chinese yuan ($400m).

The weather has caused power shortages. Sichuan relies heavily on hydropower. Dry conditions have reduced the water level of reservoirs and therefore the power generated by hydropower turbines. At the same time, hot weather has increased demand for electricity for air conditioning.

The Chongqing mountain fires are trending on Weibo, People’s Daily sent out this video two hours ago, a lot of people in comments repeating the same sentiment: please let it rain, please let it rain pic.twitter.com/7yQgg2jyd5

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) August 21, 2022

Without electricity, factories have had to shut down, disrupting international supply chains. Suppliers to Tesla, Toyota and FoxConn closed for six days last week.

Energy analyst David Fishman said Shanghai, where he lives, has been sweating under temperatures of 38-40C every day. “I stay inside during the day”, he said. While Fishman and most people in Shanghai now have air conditioning, the technology is less common in rural areas.

The crisis has led to increasing climate awareness, campaigners said. Greenpeace East Asia’s Li Shuo told Climate Home: “Many in China are starting to call 2022 as the first year of the new climate era. The only norm might be abnormality from now on.”

Shocking pictures from China: World’s third-largest river dries up in drought pic.twitter.com/1rXKa01quq

— Daniel Moser (@_dmoser) August 23, 2022

Dmitri De Boer of ClientEarth China told Climate Home there was a lot of coverage in the Chinese media of the heatwave. “I’ve seen more and more coverage where they’re making the link with climate change and the need to accelerate the climate transition,” he said.

In the short term, the government has increased support for coal to make up for the hydropower shortage. Vice-premier Han Zheng said last week that coal use was up 15% year on year in the first two weeks of August and that he would “enhance policy support [and] take multiple measures to help coal plants ease actual difficulties”.

The post China hit by longest and strongest heatwave on record appeared first on Climate Home News.

No, I had not done any high-intensity training or run a marathon. I had simply left my home in Delhi around 3pm to drop my six-year-old son at a friend’s house, less than two kilometers away.

India had its hottest March on record. Now we are in a heatwave, with top temperatures exceeding 40C (100F) in many parts of the country. This is what climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels, feels like. Unbearable.

I ditched my car that day, thinking I could walk a short distance. My son, fortunately, was not too badly affected, busily playing with his friend after gulping a bottle of juice. But I had learned my lesson. No more walking mid-afternoon.

The problem is, many of the options to make the heat more tolerable involve either somebody else’s sweat or burning more fossil fuels.

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A couple of days later, returning from the office, I took a cycle rickshaw, pulled by a man who must have been in his mid-40s. Throughout the 15-minute ride to my home, the rickshaw puller, a Muslim, kept quiet. But while waiting at a red light he said he would not be able to maintain his Ramadan fast until evening because of the heat.

During my journey home I saw many others who were out in the heat to earn a living, mostly men. There were fruit and vegetable sellers, people working at repair shops, hawkers of all descriptions.

They were sweating and seeking shade under the few trees, their heads covered with gamcha (a small white scarf that is popular in northern India). I had likewise worn a scarf on my excursion. It can reflect the sunlight and draw sweat away from the body. But these traditional methods of coping have their limits.

After my bout of heatstroke, I decided not to go out without my vehicle no matter how hard it hits my monthly budget – a reality considering the rising prices for petrol, diesel and gas. I vowed to keep all my meetings in the mornings or late afternoon – avoiding the hottest 3-4 hours.

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And I thought of the people who cover the length and breadth of the city to deliver food and consumer goods. I asked the lady who helps me in managing the house to not go out to buy groceries and order them online with a preferred delivery time of morning or evening. I put out a bowl of water for birds and animals.

I have the privilege to own a car and air conditioning at home. These run on fossil fuels, making global heating worse. But even the richest 10% of Indians have smaller carbon footprints than citizens in developed countries, which bear the biggest responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in.

As a regular consumer of news, I read about deadly heatwaves in Rajasthan, or regions of Pakistan, that are even worse hit. What must be happening to people there is just too scary to even think about.

Climate scientists warned us summers would get hotter. That is now unfolding and it won’t stop until we all end our dependence on coal, oil and gas.

What we need now is to have all hands on deck – come together, stop working in silos and find solutions now. There is no other way to tackle this but to join hands – rich and poor – because when climate change impacts intensify, the ones with more resources won’t escape the impacts either.

It is time we start looking at better public transport, energy-efficient systems and learn how we can make changes in our daily lives to help.

The post The heat in Delhi is unbearable. This is what the climate crisis feels like appeared first on Climate Home News.

“Work is lighter during Ramadan and just in the evenings because even the management is relaxed. But when I work fewer hours, I get paid less too,” says the Indian migrant worker. “I am also worried about what it will be like after Ramadan because we will work in the daytime again until July. It is going to be really hot.”

It is not unusual for daily temperatures to top 35C and a high of 45C was recorded in Abu Dhabi’s Al Dhafra region last week. Climate change is increasing the frequency of heatwaves in urban hubs across the Arabian Gulf: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar.

This year Ramadan began on 2 April and will last 29 or 30 days, depending on the moon. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan, around 14 hours a day for those living in Saudi Arabia. That means no eating or drinking, even water.

An analysis of weather station data that was recorded till March 2020, shows some parts of the UAE have crossed the temperature threshold that the human body can withstand. Ras al Khaimah has, at times, recorded wet bulb temperatures of 35C, when the body is no longer able to cool itself by sweating.

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The oil-rich countries of the region generally have a better capacity to cope with the extreme climate as most daily life takes place in air-conditioned indoor settings. But weather like this is especially challenging for the very large population of migrant workers already facing long work hours, wage theft, and unsuitable living spaces.

To protect these workers, all Gulf countries prohibit outdoor work during the hottest hours of the day, but this is limited to the summer season, which doesn’t officially begin till mid-June. During that period, outdoor work stops from around noon to 3 or 4pm, depending on the country.

However, for workers like Jangid, temperatures reach dangerous levels before the summer season starts, forming a dire health hazard.

Migrant construction workers in the UAE (Photo: Zeashan Ashraf)

A 2019 heatwave in the region in early June – before the official start of the summer – recorded the highest temperature on Earth, 63C in direct sunlight. Heatstroke killed at least one outdoor worker in Kuwait.

A Guardian investigation found that hundreds of migrant labourers are worked to death in Qatar each year due to heat stress.

“There’s a serious correlation between heat and the physical and mental health of an individual,” says Mahaa K Raja, a Pakistani doctor based in Saudi Arabia. “The detrimental outcomes can translate into heat exhaustion or something as serious as a heat stroke. Symptoms may range from feeling queasy, minor irritability, dizziness to delusions, irrational behaviour, hallucinations, and coma.”

People with a pre-existing mental illness, particularly psychosis, have a two to three times higher risk of death during heatwaves than people without, according to a report by Imperial College’s Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

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Ahmed Mohsin, a food delivery rider, says that he has been emotionally distressed trying to take care of his health in Dubai’s current climate while working outdoors, with peak temperatures of 34-37C.

Mohsin is a devout Muslim but he has not been able to fast this year during Ramadan.

“I did first the first three days but I was feeling so dizzy and like I would faint. I wasn’t able to drive,” he says. “And if fasting gets in the way of your health, God orders you to not fast. God is merciful.”

He is in his early 20s and says that the long work hours he has been facing over the past four years as a delivery driver have really impacted his health. “Last summer I fainted a few times and I am also always feeling very tired and get headaches a lot. I haven’t seen a doctor but I know I am not in good health.”

Like the other tens of thousands of migrants workers who have moved to Dubai in recent years to meet the increase in the demand for food deliveries, Mohsin does not get a fixed salary but around $2.60 per delivery.

Migrant construction workers in the UAE (Photo: Rabiya Jaffery)

This is why keeping up with an exorbitant amount of orders daily is essential for him and his family that he is supporting back in Lahore, Pakistan.

Working conditions are expected to become increasingly dangerous for people like Mohsin and Jangid as the region will disproportionally suffer from heat extremes due to climate change.

“The Arab world is a highly sensitive area to climate change and policymakers need to make sure climate is a priority agenda,” says Lina Yassin, a Sudanese climate activist.

A report on the impacts of climate change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states that global climate projections suggest a significant intensification of summer heat extremes in the region.

“These events involve excessively high temperatures (up to 56C and higher) and will be of extended duration, being potentially life-threatening for humans,” the report notes.

“By the end of the century, about half of the MENA population (approximately 600 million) could be exposed to annually recurring super- and ultra-extreme heatwaves.”

According to the World Bank, capital cities in the Middle East could face four months of exceedingly hot days every year.

The post Migrant workers suffer heat stress during Ramadan in Arabian Gulf appeared first on Climate Home News.

The extraordinary heat that engulfed the north west of Canada and the US last week broke temperature records by several degrees, with temperatures settling above 40C for days and reaching 49.6C in the village of Lytton, Canada.

Shortly after, Lytton was destroyed in wildfires. In Western Canada, nearly 500 people are estimated to have died and experts expect the death toll to rise.

Without the influence of human-caused climate change, the heatwave would have been “virtually impossible”, according to a rapid attribution analysis by an international team of 27 leading climate scientists that worked around the clock to publish the study.

Climate change, they found, made the heatwave at least 150 times more likely to happen – with such extreme heat not occurring under current statistical analysis.

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The findings have prompted scientists to question their understanding of climate change’ impact on heatwaves, which could lead to some climate models having to be revised.

Friederike Otto, of the Environmental Change Institute in Oxford University, one of the study’s author, said climate science had been “a bit complacent” on how it understands heatwaves.

The intensity of heatwaves is increasing in orders of magnitude not seen for other extreme events, she said. “Heatwaves is how climate change kills us. It’s how climate change manifests itself more strongly.”

Using observations and computer stimulation, scientists compared the past climate in the area covering Portland, Seattle and Vancouver with current trends after global warming of around 1.2C since the late 19^th century.

They found that temperatures during last week’s event were so extreme that it was difficult to estimate with confidence how rare the event was but suggested it equated to a once in a thousand year event in today’s climate.

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Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological, another of the authors, told reporters the heatwave shattered previous temperature records by up to 5C – “an extraordinary event”.

“As comparison, here in the Netherlands we were really shocked when the previous record was broken by 1.8C and this is more than double that.”

The heatwave, Van Oldenborgh said, is “both a major disaster and weather event but also a major scientific challenge to understand what happened”.

He said the state of climate science in 2020 would have shown the heatwave to be “basically impossible” and more research was needed to understand how it came about and whether such an event could happen in other parts of the world.

“It’s rather shaking that our theoretical picture of how heatwaves behave was broken so roughly,” he said. “We are much less certain about how climate [change] affects heatwaves than we were two weeks ago.”

South Africa’s climate advisers urge faster shift away from fossil fuels

The authors of the paper identified two possible explanations for the extreme jump in peak temperatures observed in North America.

The first is “really bad luck” and that, albeit exaggerated by climate change, this remains a very low probability event. However, in a future world with 2C of global heating, such an extreme heatwave could happen once every 5 to 10 years, the study found.

An alternative explanation is that the climate system in that area has crossed a threshold that increased the probability of such extreme heat far beyond the gradual hike in temperatures peaks that have been observed so far.

Under this scenario, record-breaking heatwaves like last week’s event are already more likely to happen than climate models predict – something which the team of scientists say requires further investigation.

“This is such an exceptional event that we can’t rule out the possibility that we’re experiencing heat extremes today that we only expected to come at higher levels of global warming,” said Otto.

If this second scenario proved to be correct, it may lead to the revision of climate models.

If an essential climate process is missing from the current climate models, these will “definitely have to be improved,” said Van Oldenborgh.

The post North American heatwave broke records – and the climate models appeared first on Climate Home News.

On 2 May several parts of the country suffered from severe dust and thunderstorms, resulting in the deaths of at least 124 people. On Sunday, more strong storms and extreme heat led to the deaths of over 70 people.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has set a target of zero deaths from heatwaves. Anup Kumar Srivastava, a drought and heatwave expert at the NDMA, told Climate Home News that efforts to make communties more resilient to extreme heat had reduced deaths.

According to the NDMA, heat waves in India have accounted for over 22,000 deaths since 1992. In 2015, 2,040 Indians died in shocking heatwaves. Recent years have seen declines, to 1,111 in 2016 and 222 in 2017.

Srivastava said the NDMA had launched “intense and sustained efforts for reduction in mortality”. This including assisting state governments to prepare heat action plans. This was particularly important because climate change has aggravated the problem.

“The average and daily peak temperatures in India have raised and intense heatwaves have become more frequent and severe, affecting health and livelihood of vulnerable populations,” said Srivastava.

Preparing local governments is a key to reducing deaths from heat waves and dust storms, reported the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in April.

“It is so hot that in New Delhi the street melts,” Anjali Jaiswal, NRDC India programme director told CHN. “And when children, the poor kids in the street, stop you they don’t ask for money or food, they ask for ‘pani’ – water.”

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Preparedness is the key to saving lives and helping the NDMA reach its zero mortality target. “This goal is definitely within reach. It will take strong efforts on coordination, action, and science,” Jaiswal said. “Unlike air pollution impacts, heat-related illness is largely reversible.”

The heat is most dangerous to those who are more exposed to it. A large portion of the Indian population work outside, where temperatures can hit 46C and many buildings are not fitted with air conditioning.

To combat heat waves, city officials can work together with community leaders and others to warn about heat waves early, prepare hospitals and emergency response, including drinking water, and build robust community awareness programs that inform people.

In 2015, more than 1,700 people died in the south eastern state of Andhra Pradesh. This year, the state has again seen killer heat, but not on the same scale. In response to the tragedy, the state developed inter-agency coordination across health, labour and transport departments, as well as set up 1,168 stations for weather forecasting and modelling.

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Other states, namely Telangana in the south and Odisha in the east, have developed heat action plans and local thresholds to analyse the vulnerability of communities in different parts of the state.

This will only become more necessary as the climate warms, experts warn.

“Climate change is fuelling more extreme weather in India,” said Jaiswal. “Even with modern forecasting systems, we are struggling to keep up.”

“There is an obvious link between climate change and heatwaves,” said Dr Friederike Otto, deputy director at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.

She said that it was difficult to predict extreme events without using large ensembles of model simulations, given their rarity. Authorities have to “make the most” of and be “more selective about which models [they] actually use” when it comes to making predictions.

On Monday, India’s meteorological department announced it would add 30 doppler radars which provide precise information about weather patterns and help in issuing warnings two-three hours prior to severe conditions.

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