Climate in Crisis: Mother Nature’s Urgent Warnings and Escalating Disasters, Part 4 of a Multi-part Series

In early 2024, for the first time in recorded history, the average global temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, an event that was not supposed to happen for years. It was actually anticipated that this important threshold would only be reached in the next few years or the next decade. Rising global temperatures are causing more frequent and intense storms, droughts, floods, hurricanes, and many other weather-related disasters in almost every nation on Earth. Experts say that billions of people are already facing extreme heat. In China, record-breaking temperatures lasting for weeks caused widespread devastation. In northern China, as many as nine provinces faced extreme drought and water shortages. In Thailand and the Philippines, record-breaking temperatures rose so high that they were classified as “extremely dangerous.” Schools have been closed in the Philippines and Bangladesh for tens of millions of children.

By mid-May, Mexico’s forest commission reported that wildfires had destroyed 75,474 hectares, and, unfortunately, 30 of the blazes had occurred in protected natural areas. Mexico’s federal Health Ministry reported that, as of June 2024, 155 people had died from heat-related causes while another 2,567 suffered from heat-related illnesses. The critically endangered howler monkey-people, endemic to Mexico, are also dying. In Mexico, nearly 150 of them have died amid a brutal heat wave.

In Au Lac, also known as Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of dead fish-people washed up on the shores of Song May reservoir after a brutal heat wave scorched the central and southern parts of the nation. “It is with some concern that we at the WMO once again sound the ‘red alert’ on climate. There is a nearly nine in ten likelihood that at least one year between 2024 and 2028 will be the hottest on record, even hotter than 2023, which smashed all temperature records. And this report makes it clear that we are on a record- breaking warming path. It’s expected to get even worse over the next five years.”