The torrential rainfall and furious flooding in neighbouring Spain in recent days have been made all the worse by climate change, according to scientists.
An entire year’s worth of rain fell within about eight hours, causing devastation to property and resulting in at least 160 deaths in Spain's Valencia region.
A super typhoon has just hit Taiwan, bringing the entire country to a standstill. The storm's full force has hit the capital, Taipei, with winds of more than 200 kilometres per hour. Whole villages are expected to be buried by landslides.
Rainfall said to have intensified twofold by climate change, caused deadly flooding in central European countries two months ago. The widespread flooding affected countries including Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Thousands of people had to be evacuated from their homes.
Wildfires and droughts have become all too common in Portugal. From the middle of September this year Portugal faced severe forest fires in the central and northern regions, fuelled by unusually high temperatures. The emergency services in Portugal needed support from neighbouring countries. Overall, the temperatures in Portugal this year are expected to be the hottest ever.
Portugal’s Antonio Guterres has become one of the world’s most vocal advocates, urgently warning of the escalating risk of global warming, which threatens not just disastrous weather, but total worldwide catastrophe.
He explains only by limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius do we have a fighting chance of preventing the irreversible collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets - and the catastrophes that accompany them.”
“That means cutting global emissions by
42% compared to 2019 levels by 2030, and 60% by 2035.”
We are only on track to cut emissions by 10% by 2030. This crucial fact will no doubt be at the forefront of the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, as leaders gather from Monday, November 11 to Friday, November 22.
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