These are troubling times around the world, a summer when it seems as if we are truly now experiencing the very real, damaging and lasting consequences of climate change. And while there are those who still deny its existence, or argue that warming trends occur naturally and periodically, the anecdotal evidence certainly suggests as if something now has truly changed and our weather is all the more extreme.
In Germany, the waters of the River Rhine became so warm that fish simply died. In Spain and Portugal, temperatures are so hot that record books are being rewritten. And in Switzerland, Alpine slopes are parched and dry, cattle unable to feed, farms unable to make hay for the coming winter.
In the Netherlands, a nation long-used to battling the advance of the sea, water levels are undermining the system of dykes used to shut out that seawater. In India, the summer heat has returned with a vengeance. In Pakistan too, the poor are vulnerable to the vicious temperatures. In Nordic nations, timberland is tinder dry and burning by the hectares — and still there are sceptics who question the science of climate change.
In Canada, where northern forests are parched and where polar bears lack the ice to rest as they hunt for seals, they have buried the dead from it being too hot — but still the deniers bury their heads in the sands of ignorance.
Yes, scientists have warned too that parts of China will become too hot for humans to survive if things keep going the way it is now — but that is still not enough to convince the unconcerned.
Together, the nations of the world — with the notable exception of the current administration is Washington — have pledged to keep global temperature rise this century well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, trying to stem the effects of global warming, by switching to alternative energy sources and thereby phasing out our dependence on fossil fuels.
Developed nations too have pledged funds to assist those developing to share the burden of making our world greener. And in the UAE, the Leadership and Government have embarked on a series of policies and programmes that will reduce our carbon footprint, increase our use and reliance on renewable energy sources and ensure that our environment and natural habitats are protected.
Let the events of this summer, where weather events are more extreme, where drought is common and confront our complacency, and where more are vulnerable than ever, be a clarion call to follow through on our determination to make good on our commitments to change.
