Climate change is making temperatures deadlier

Climate Focus

By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

Hello,

This newsletter would have tried to wrap up the two-week biodiversity conference in Cali, Colombia, but the weather dramatically intervened.

As the death toll from flash floods in eastern Spain climbed to 158, the largest storm to hit Taiwan in nearly 30 years made landfall, causing two deaths and 515 injuries.

Meteorologists have said a year's worth of rain fell in eight hours in parts of Valencia, while Typhoon Kong-rey dumped more than 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) of rainfall in Taiwan's eastern mountains, felling more than 2,000 trees and hundreds of street signs.

Research group Climate Central said that a low pressure system behind Spain's floods had tapped into an "atmospheric river" carrying excess moisture from the unusually warm Tropical Atlantic.

Its Climate Shift Index: Ocean says human-caused climate change has made these elevated sea surface temperatures at least 50 to 300 times more likely.

This comes as a new report by doctors and health experts warned that climate change, driven by fossil fuel emissions, is raising temperatures to dangerous new heights, while also worsening drought and food security.

The average person experienced 50 more days of dangerous temperatures in 2023, the hottest year on record, than they would have without climate change, according to the Lancet Countdown, an annual report based on work by dozens of experts, academic institutions and U.N. agencies, including the World Health Organization.

The elderly are especially vulnerable, with the number of heat-related deaths in people over 65 last year reaching a level 167% above the number in the 1990s. Without climate change, researchers would have expected the figure to rise by 65% from the 1990s, the report said.

"Year on year, the deaths directly associated with climate change are increasing," said Marina Belén Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown.

Keep on scrolling for more on how rising temperatures are worsening Australia's wildfire season.

The tragedy is already Spain's worst flood-related disaster in modern history. Opposition politicians accused the central government in Madrid of acting too slowly to warn residents and send in rescue teams, prompting the Interior Ministry to say regional authorities were responsible for civil protection measures.

Manuel Martinez Santiago reacts as he sees a pile of cars in a tunnel where he says he fears victims will be found, after heavy rains in Alfafar, in Valencia, Spain. REUTERS/Susana Vera

Australia must brace for longer and more dangerous fire seasons and marine heatwaves in the years ahead, a government report said. The oceans around Australia are continuing to warm, with increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leading to more acidic oceans, particularly in the country's south, said the Bureau of Meteorology and national science agency CSIRO in their biennial joint climate report.

The world is failing to curb emissions of nitrous oxide that makes it impossible to meet the main goal of the Paris climate agreement to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the Global Nitrous Oxide Assessment (N2O) report. Click here for the full Reuters explainer.

Developing Asia faces a potential 17% loss in its collective gross domestic product by 2070 if high emissions persist, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), underscoring the urgency for stronger and more ambitious climate action. While mitigation efforts have gained momentum, they remain insufficient to meet global targets, the ADB said in its inaugural climate report.

Los Angeles County has sued beverage makers PepsiCo and Coca-Cola over plastic pollution and misleading the public about the environmental impact and recyclability of their containers. The lawsuit states the companies did so despite knowing the plastic in their bottles cannot be recycled at a scale meaningful enough to offset the environmental harms of the containers, most of which end up at landfills or as litter.

An ambitious tree-planting campaign hopes to restore Libya's forests as the country faces severe threats from climate change, with drought and deforestation rapidly diminishing the nation's green cover. Click here to learn more.

National pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions still fall far short of what is needed to limit catastrophic global warming, the United Nations said, as countries prepare for the next round of climate change negotiations in November.

The carbon market, formed by the state's Climate Commitment Act (CCA), has raised more than $2 billion for programs including transit, wildfire protection, and salmon protection since its 2023 launch.

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