For many years, global warming and climate change was all about melting ice caps in faraway places like the Arctic and Antarctic where few people lived. The immediate impact was mostly felt by the local wildlife such as penguins and polar bears. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the whole issue has been neglected for so long. For years, it was just easy for policymakers and the people they serve to pretend this was a problem that was just far away from them and would not impact their own lives in any noticeable way. Then there came the extreme weather events such as hurricanes and floods. While the impact of these events was far more immediate and extensive, they were mostly short-term disruptions to be endured and then forgotten about. But now, global warming is increasingly becoming a permanent part of our lives as temperatures reach previously unfathomable levels across the world. National temperature records are falling one after another, with 15 having been broken since the start of this year alone. Last week, South Korea’s capital Seoul broke a century-old weather record after recording its 26th tropical night, which is a night where temperatures remained above 25 degrees Celsius.
Last month, over 500 people died over six days in Karachi alone as temperatures soared above 40 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, both North America and Europe are once again suffering from wildfires, a by-product of the extreme heat enveloping the globe. In fact, a wildfire in Northern California at the end of July spread to cover an area larger than the city of Los Angeles, becoming one of the largest wildfires in US history. Extreme heat is increasingly becoming an oxymoron as high temperatures appear to be becoming a regular part of life across the world. The situation has gotten so dire that Unicef has urged governments around the world to "act now" to get rising global temperatures under control as they pose significant threats to the health and well-being of children. Almost half a billion children are living in areas experiencing at least double the number of extremely hot days as their grandparents and many of these places lack the infrastructure or services to endure it, as per Unicef. Of the nearly half a billion deaths due to extreme heat in 2021, nearly 45000 were children.
There could be no clearer indication that global warming is a threat to human existence on this planet as it is literally killing the children who are our future on this planet. And yet, even though the threat is now more immediate than ever, many countries still refuse to take their commitments to tackle climate change seriously. These countries are mostly rich and thus more sheltered from the impacts. However, one would think that seeing a wildfire bigger than a large city would make the US government get more serious about cutting emissions. Sadly, action on global warming is one of the victims of inequality. The countries contributing most to the problem and thus best placed to solve it also seem to be the ones least keen to do so. Without a major attitude shift in the capitals of the rich, the planet will continue to melt and human life, especially in the Global South, will become increasingly miserable.