Extreme heat is the most deadly weather disaster
Hundreds of thousands of people die each year from extreme temperatures, more than any other weather disaster.
People cool off in a fountain at Madrid Rio Park during a heatwave in Madrid on July 23, 2024. According to preliminary data released by the EU Climate Monitor on July 23, 2024, July 21, 2024, was the hottest day in world history.
Oscar del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images
privacy policy The UN secretary-general has appealed to government leaders to protect the planet’s 8.1 billion people from extreme heat that has caused deaths, power outages and droughts around the world in recent days.
The urgent plea comes just days after the Earth set a new record for the hottest day on record, then quickly broke it.
In some ways, these four calls to action seem almost old-fashioned: Scientists and health officials have known for decades that humans are warming the planet at their own great peril.
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But a stark warning from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has highlighted how the effects of global warming have become more pronounced and dangerous in recent years.
“If there’s anything that unites a divided world, it’s that we are all feeling the heat more and more,” Mr. Guterres said Thursday. “The planet is getting hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere.”
Guterres called for action and offered four recommendations to world leaders.
First, we need to protect the most vulnerable: Heat disproportionately affects the elderly, pregnant women and those with existing health problems, and is more dangerous for low-income communities.
Second, we need stronger protections for workers who are increasingly exposed to extreme heat in the workplace. A new International Labor Organization report, also released Thursday, found that more than 70% of the world’s workers are exposed to excessive heat, and that heat waves in 2020 killed 4,200 workers worldwide.
Leaders must also use the best data and science to make economies more resilient, Guterres said. Extreme heat threatens economies by damaging infrastructure, agriculture, water supplies, health systems, power grids and worker productivity.
Finally, governments should strive to limit global warming to well below 1.5°C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement, and continue to address the root causes of rising temperatures.
The call to action comes at a time of growing global awareness and distress over extreme temperatures: Last year was the hottest year on record, and scientists say that record is likely to be broken in 2024. June this year marked the 13th consecutive month that broke the monthly global temperature record.
This is a continuation of a long-term trend: every year since 2014 has ranked in the top 10 hottest years on Earth.
Extreme heat has also emerged as the deadliest weather-related cause of death worldwide, with around 489,000 deaths caused by extreme heat each year since 2000, according to the United Nations. Around 18,970 deaths per year are attributed to workers exposed to dangerous temperatures.
Despite their danger, extreme heat has received less attention and less action than other climate-related disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires, but that’s starting to change: In recent years, leaders around the world have begun to pay special attention to the risks of extreme heat.
Several cities, including Los Angeles, Miami, and Phoenix, as well as Melbourne, Australia, Athens, Greece, Freetown, Sierra Leone, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Santiago, Chile, have hired chief heat officers tasked with developing new approaches to cool cities and protect residents during heatwaves.
Cities are also experimenting with new systems for naming and ranking heat waves, similar to how meteorologists classify hurricanes. A heat wave ranking program that launched in Athens, Greece, in 2021 expanded to six cities across the U.S. And California is currently developing its own heat wave ranking system, which it plans to launch by the end of the year.
Cities and states are also developing plans to protect residents during heat waves, including issuing early warnings, opening cooling centers and deploying task forces to identify vulnerable residents.
Extreme heatwaves will have a disproportionate impact on low-income and developing countries, many of which are located in the hottest parts of the world and home to some of the most vulnerable people.
But extreme temperatures now affect the wealthy too, Guterres said, and he hoped the call to action would encourage wealthy countries to invest more in global funds for heat adaptation and climate mitigation.
“Why does climate change have to happen now?” he says. “Initially, it was not felt by the majority of the population, or at least the majority of the population that is a major contributor to the decision-making system. … Now the heat is being felt by those who have the capacity to make decisions. And that’s my hope.”
Reprinted from E&E News Posted with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News delivers news that matters to energy and environmental professionals.
