The Irish Times view on a week of record temperatures: a summer of deadly extremes

The world is shifting towards “a superheated climate”, not seen in the past one million years, prior to human existence

Tourists rest in the shade at Piazza Navona in Rome this week. Scorching temperatures have threatened the health of the elderly and pushed them inside. (Photo: Alessandro Penso/The New York Times)
Tourists rest in the shade at Piazza Navona in Rome this week. Scorching temperatures have threatened the health of the elderly and pushed them inside. (Photo: Alessandro Penso/The New York Times)

Across three continents heat records are occurring simultaneously. In Europe, a combination of weather patterns has created a heat blast around the Mediterranean. That the climate crisis is the chief antagonist is beyond doubt.

The World Meteorological Organisation has called it the “summer of extremes” with no respite yet in sight. We are seeing heatwaves increasing in frequency, intensity and duration.

Ireland at present is located on the cooler northern side of the Jet Stream in the upper atmosphere,<TH>which is bringing a lot of rain. That should be of little comfort when applying a global perspective, as the evidence points to humanity being in uncharted territory.

We are witnessing increasing devastation from weather extremes, such as raging wildfires that wipe out ecosystems and inflict an immense health toll on humanity – all exacerbated by horrible unpredictability. Knowing that rising carbon emissions and reckless burning of fossil fuels is the biggest culprit, it is hard to reconcile how this was let happen, though weak political leadership must shoulder a lot of the blame.

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That continues to be the case. Chinese leaders this week rebuffed attempts by US climate envoy John Kerry to persuade them to commit to tougher climate action during talks in Beijing; tensions between the world’s largest carbon emitting countries are a threat to global co-operation.

More and more places are experiencing temperatures above 45 degrees. Many are on a trajectory to 50 degrees, close to the limit of human survival. Two-thirds of land is in the northern hemisphere, and it warms up faster than water does, so northern summers are the hottest times of year on Earth. This year the natural El Niño warming process arising in the Pacific is a contributory factor, but the highest temperatures usually tend to come later in the season. That is why this year’s unprecedented circumstances are so unsettling.

“What is happening now with all these extremely hot days and the fires, it’s coming home directly in the citadels of the developed countries,” said Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of the Caribbean nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines, long<NO1>been<NO> threatened by climate change.

This should make those in the wealthy western world distinctly uncomfortable. The bigger picture dictates, however, that from this point on there is a relentless focus in acting to rescue as much of the planet as possible and to scale up efforts to contain average global temperature rise as near to 1.5 degrees as possible. The world is shifting towards “a superheated climate”, not seen in the past one million years, prior to human existence. That should be motivation enough for pursuing wholesale transformation of economies and societies, despite all the inconvenience that it will bring.