The World Meteorological Organisation has itemised what July has been like on Planet Earth. You really don’t want to know, but please read on.
There has been record-breaking rainfall and flooding in China, Korea, Japan, northern India and the northeast of the United States. In many places a month’s rain fell in 24 hours.
There have been record-breaking heatwaves in Algeria (48.7°C), Tunisia (49°C), Greece, Italy, Spain, Canada, Mexico and the southwest of the US (43°C and in Death Valley 53.3°C). The current wildfires in Greece have emitted 1 megatonne of carbon into the air and those in Canada have created 100 megatonnes of carbon emissions, adding to the conditions that have led to increasing temperatures. The wildfires in the Siberia boreal forests are visible from space, and they release 10-20 times as much carbon as fires in other parts of the world because the ground has so much stored carbon.
These events, in just one month, have devastated hundreds of thousands of people’s livelihoods, the places they live and in many cases their lives. July has been the hottest month on record, and, if we don’t change something now, next year’s July will be even hotter, and the one after that.
As UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres says, we all face a future in which the air is unbreathable and the heat is unbearable. The question isn’t whether or not it’s going to happen, it’s just how soon it’s going to happen if we keep on doing so little to prevent it.
Here in New Zealand we have undertaken to reduce our emissions by 50% on 2005 figures by 2030 (that’s in only seven years’ time) to keep global warming under 1.5°C. Why? Because our survival is under threat if we don’t meet that target. The trouble is, the planet has already almost reached the 1.5°C level and we are still increasing our emissions, not reducing them.
That’s why I’m scared. The world I’m used to is undergoing radical change. We will never have it as good as this again. Cyclone Gabrielle gave a hint of what is to come for us in terms of weather. New Zealand’s economy is still heavily dependent upon agriculture, which is temperature sensitive. Unless we act very soon, dairy farming here will be a thing of the past. Global warming is increasing faster than anyone, including the climate scientists, expected. What kind of future will my children and grandchildren have? Maybe my own future is under threat.
But what makes me even more scared is this. We are in an election year. Why can’t our politicians acknowledge the dimensions of the climate crisis we face, one greater than anything else we have ever faced? Why can’t they put their big boy pants on, lay aside their differences and work together to address this crisis?
At present they are jeopardising our long-term safety for the sake of short-term election gains, making the same old promises and offering the same old fantasy bribes for our votes as though nothing has changed since the days of Helen Clark and John Key.
Why don’t they place dealing with climate challenge as their policy priority and their Budget priority? (And why aren’t the media asking these questions of them?).
The longer we wait to mobilise, the worse it will be, and the sooner things will fall apart. It’s as if we are passengers hurtling in a car at ever-increasing speed towards the edge of a cliff and all we are doing is arguing about what radio station to listen to.
Come on, politicians. Stop fiddling while Rome burns. Take some responsibility for the long-term future of us all.
We need you to help us feel positive about the future, not scared to death.
— Emeritus Prof John Drummond is a musicologist and academic.
