Intense heat in Latin America serving as stark reminder of climate crisis | DW News

Intense heat in Latin America serving as stark reminder of climate crisis | DW News

Now while people in Northern latitudes may ring in the New Year in relative wintry Comfort many in the southern hemisphere are suffering a stark reminder of a climate crisis intense heat during the Brazilian summer is just one indicator of another year of broken heat records and the urgency of working

To fight climate change most Brazilians are used to sweltering temperatures as the year comes to an end it is summer after all but this year’s string of heat waves already started months ear people are fainting in the subway people don’t feel well it’s too hot a heat that people aren’t used

To 2023 shattered climate records all across the world according to a report by the World Meteorological organization it’s said to be the hottest year on record about 1.4 de C hotter compared to pre-industrial times the extent of Antarctic sea has never been lower sea levels continue to

Rise and so did the levels of greenhouse gases and that’s the first domino in this whole series of um connected indicators as long as those greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase the energy in the climate system the temperature of the earth will keep on increasing when we emit Greenhouse gases

By burning fossil fuels we make weather events like these floods in Somalia more common and intense key ecosystems vital to keep the planet habitable are starting to break down ice sheets are melting PMA Frost is thawing and Cal reefs are dying off it was only a few weeks ago at the

UN climate talks in Dubai that world leader leaders officially agreed to transition away fossil fuels for the first time the agreement was hailed as a breakthrough yet many say the Tex doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t call for a complete fossil fuel phase out what we are missing is finance that

Is massively needed to support developing countries to transition away from fossil fuels one thing is clear if countries don’t act fast enough we can expect new climate records in the coming years over the past 20 years that I’ve been doing this we’ve said very similar things every single year until we

Reverse that trend of greenhouse gas concentrations going up in the atmosphere then we’ll continue to see war and Brazilians may have to prepare for the likelihood of an even hotter 2024 I’m joined Now by Liz Bentley the chief executive at the Royal Meteorological Society a pleasure to

Have you with us uh in a year of climate extremes what stands out most to you when you look back at 2023 yeah it’s it’s the number of extremes that we’re seeing um whether they’re globally so we we saw the all-time highest global average temperature record broken in 2023 we’re

Now on for 2023 to be the hottest year ever recorded um but then you look at what those extreme heat events are are causing so uh EXT more extreme storms such as uh Cyclone Freddy that happened earlier in 2023 one of the longest lasting deadliest Cyclones that we’ve

Ever seen on Earth uh we see more flooding events um because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and therefore when we get rainfall it it tends to be a lot a lot heavier more deluges of rain leading to flooding as well so it’s the impacts and then you

Look at the Marine heat wave as well which is one of the reasons why we’ve seen more extreme heat temperatures uh being uh Records being broken during 2023 because our oceans are much much warmer now than they ever used to be they absor absorbing all of that heat

And they have done for decades and that’s now feeding back into the atmosphere and and actually causing those temperatures those temperature records to be broken more often there’s changes happening when it comes to dealing with the climate emergency but are policy makers reacting quickly enough do you

Think yeah I think the the science is there the evidence is very clear that as we continue to burn fossil fuels that’s gas oil and coal then we will continue to see our climate to change those temperatures to increase and more extreme weather events to happen so the

Science is very clear and you said at like cop 28 uh we’re now starting to see fossil fuel or transition away from fossil fuel now being embedded into the text but it’s taken a long time for us to get to that and so you know governments and policy makers are now

Starting to recognize that this is important but I do think countries businesses communities and us as individuals have recognized this now for many years and have started to make that transition away from fossil fuel already so without waiting for policy makers and the governments to kind of Step Up And

Lead I guess on this we’re already starting to see uh as I say businesses and and countries and communities actually starting to take a lead on this uh this transition away from fossil fuels

While people in northern latitudes may ring in the New Year in relative wintry comfort, many in the Southern Hemisphere are suffering a stark reminder of a climate crisis. Intense heat during the Brazilian summer is just one indicator of another year of broken heat records – and the urgency of working to fight climate change.

Chapters:
0:00 Background on climate
2:48 Liz Bentley, Chief Executive at Royal Meteorological Society

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