SUMMER HAS GONE, BUT CLIMATE CHANGE STILL HERE

Now that autumn has arrived, temperatures are dropping significantly after an exceptionally hot summer.

In the Algarve, highs a little above 25 C are replacing those often between the mid-30s and 40 C. Lows just a little above 15 C have already become the new norm.

Scientists emphasise that the exceptional summer heat that caused many deaths and devastating wildfires across northern and central Portugal in July and August were due to climate change. Portugal has long taken climate change very seriously with proactive and ambitious efforts, including reducing reliance as quickly as possible on fossil fuels, such as oil, natural gas and coal that cause the increase in C02 greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

The leaders of three of the world’s top greenhouse gas polluters – China, India and Russia - have just attended a summit meeting in China, but have shown no intention in minimising world  concerns about global warming. On the contrary, China and India intend to continue buying massive amounts of crude oil from Russia. Turkey is another major buyer of Russian oil and other fossil fuels.

In addition to Russia, the two  biggest sellers of crude oil are Saudi Arabia and Iran. It means so much to their economies that there is no prospect of them stopping.

The Labour Party government in the United Kingdom is planning to produce offshore clean energy from wind and hydrogen. However, it has recently supported issuing new licences for the extraction of oil from existing fields in the North Sea to end existing infrastructures. The opposition Conservative Party last week announced its plan to maximise extraction of North Sea oil and gas and remove climate commitments, a major shift from the previous 2050 net zero emission goals.

Two hundred countries, including Portugal and the UK, signed up to the Paris Agreement in 2015 pledging to pursue efforts to limit temperature rises to 1.5 C and keep them well below 2.0 C compared with pre-industrial levels. Portugal is keeping that commitment. Many other countries are not.

Portugal, particularly the Algarve, is one of the most vulnerable regions in Europe to climate change. An autumn of temporary respite is all the more welcome.