Preparing for a Future of Extreme Weather
Alice Hill August 25, 2023
The planet has broiled this summer, with July winning the unwelcome title of the hottest month since records began, in the nineteenth century. Indeed, climate scientists think that it was possibly the hottest month in the past 120,000 years. Given the rapid pace of climate change, however, July offered merely a taste of the heat to come. In 2015, world leaders established a goal to keep average global surface temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. In July, global temperatures breached that critical ceiling, if only briefly. Nearly 5,000 local heat and rainfall records were broken in the United States alone; globally, the number exceeded 10,000. And scientists anticipate that 2023 will clock in as the hottest year on record.
Although climate scientists have long predicted an increase in such extreme weather events, some have recently expressed alarm at the sheer speed at which the climate is changing. The sudden explosion of record temperatures carries a warning for humans: adapt or die. The scale of the climate catastrophes suffered throughout this year reaffirms that it is no longer sufficient for governments and policymakers to focus on mitigation—in other words, developing strategies to reduce harmful pollutants emitted into the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide and methane. The world must also pay more attention to adaptation, upgrading infrastructure and policies to withstand extreme weather. If governments and societies do not make adequate preparations, the damaging impacts of climate change will crush lives, livelihoods, and communities across the globe. The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) under the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change, scheduled for late November through early December in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), provides a crucial moment for nations to finally give adaptation equal billing with mitigation on the international climate agenda. This year’s COP could herald an inflection point for climate efforts; with weather catastrophes still raging around the planet, governments should be galvanized to take more radical action than they have at previous summits…
ADAPT OR PERISH…
WHERE WE STAND…
A RISING TIDE…
Never has the destructive force of climate change revealed itself so widely across the globe...
Money alone will not prepare communities for weather of historic extremes…
FACING DOWN DISASTER…
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