Two weeks before world leaders meet to debate the climate crisis, a report released on Thursday shows the 10 deadliest extreme weather events in the past two decades were made worse by burning fossil fuels.
More than half a million people around the world were killed in those disasters since 2004.
“Many people now understand that climate change is already making life more dangerous,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London and co-founder of World Weather Attribution, the group that published the report. “What did not work yet is turning knowledge into action on a large-enough scale.”
Even with the abundance of evidence on how a warming world is endangering human life, the world keeps burning fossil fuels: 2023, the hottest year on record, also set a record for greenhouse gas emissions.
The stakes are high for how the world will respond in November, with a pivotal U.S. election and an annual climate summit of world leaders, known as COP29, hosted in Azerbaijan. Developing countries, hit hard by climate disasters, are pressing for rich countries to make good on their pledges to curb emissions and fund climate adaptation projects.
Next week, the United States, the highest per-capita emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, will vote on its climate future. A Kamala Harris presidency could continue the work of the Biden administration in transitioning to renewable energy, largely through tax credits and increased American manufacturing on clean energy technologies.If returned to office, Donald J. Trump could roll back environmental regulations, including those that limit greenhouse gases, and continue development of fossil fuels. He could also pull out of international agreements to fight climate change, as he did in his first term as president.
“It will be extremely difficult for the world to take on the climate crisis if Trump is president of the United States,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director for Evergreen Action, a climate nonprofit.
One example of these disasters would be the catastrophic Libyan rains of 2023.