Unprecedented danger caused by heat waves and extreme weather will continue to be the new normal if we don't take urgent action to stop fossil fuel-driven climate change.
From England and China, to India and North Africa, the United States and even the Arctic, record-breaking heat waves are annually putting lives, livelihoods, and communities at risk. The soaring temperatures not only pose individual health dangers, but they also put entire ecosystems and communities at increased risk of wildfires, droughts, and failures of power grids.
In response to the widespread surge of deadly heat waves around the world, the proMETEO Seville Project took an unprecedented step after a record-breaking high temperatures in Spain in July 2022: They began naming heat waves - in the same manner as storms such as hurricanes - to raise public awareness about the grave dangers posed by extreme heat. There were more than 1,000 deaths in Spain attributable to high temperatures from July 10 to July 19, according to the Carlos III Institute.
Amid a global climate crisis catalyzed by fossil fuels, such tragic loss of life related to heat waves is becoming alarmingly common. In July 2021, nearly 600 people died in British Columbia in Canada with hundreds more perishing in the Pacific Northwest of the United States due to the same historically extreme heat wave.
As is so often the case, the most intense impacts of the climate crisis are often experienced by those least responsible for the carbon emissions exacerbating extreme weather events. These communities urgently need empathy, aid, and climate action. The entire global community needs to demand that fossil fuel companies and corporate polluters stop accelerating climate change with reckless, profit-hungry drilling and burning of coal, oil, and gas.
What is happening?
The fossil-fueled climate crisis means temperatures are soaring around the world, setting unwanted records year after year.
In 2022, the United Kingdom had its joint hottest June through August on record, which included the first-ever "red warning" for extreme heat issued by the Met Office.
Meanwhile, India experienced its hottest weather in 122 years in 2022.
In just two years, we saw significant increases in temperatures and #heatwave days across the cities. And such conditions will only get worse in the coming years unless we act on #climatechange.
