Sunny climate, stormy climate | Weekly digest #13
This week we talk about July '23 becoming the hottest month on record, Afghanistan's struggle with climate change and the results of India's tiger conservation efforts.
For the ones who are new here - Every week I bring to you 5 stories about the changing climate and its impact on us!
3 stormy ones - concerning stories that are a source of alarm
2 sunny ones - green shoots that tell you that all is not yet lost
If you would like to get future editions of the newsletter delivered to your mailbox, please hit subscribe.
Stormy news
It’s official now. July 2023 will be the hottest month on record.
The World Meteorological organization that tracks temperatures across the world declared that July 2023 will be the hottest month on record.
The first three weeks of July have seen such record breaking temperatures that scientists were sure that the avg. monthly temp for July 2023 will break the previous high seen in July 2019 even with a few more days left for the month to end.
It is for sure the hottest month since formal temperature records started in 1940 and some experts believe it might be the hottest month in more than 120,000 years.
July 6th 2023 was the hottest day on record. (We spoke about this in an earlier edition)
The UN secretary general commented that “The era of global warming is over and the era of global boiling has started”
Researchers are confident that emissions of fossil fuels from human activities are mostly to blame for the levels of warming we are now seeing.
Sources to read further:
Wild fires rage in Greece, Italy and Algeria
People play with a ball in front of a burnt forest at a beach near Gennadi on Rhodes. Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP The Mediterranean region has been experiencing deadly heat waves for more than 10 days.
Countries worst affected are Greece and Algeria.
In Greece, the tourist island of Rhodes has been in a state of emergency with widespread evacuations. More than 20,000 people had to be evacuated and more than 50,000 Ha of forests and vegetation were burned.
Algeria has seen the highest death toll with 34 people dead including 10 soldiers who were fighting the fires. More than 8000 fire fighters had to be deployed to control the fires.
Besides these, Tunisia, Italy, Portugal and Southern Spain have also seen forest fires.
What has caused the fires?
A combination of scorching temperatures (temperatures in the region have stayed upwards of 40 deg C, going as high as 48 deg C on some days), dry conditions and strong winds are the immediate cause of the fires.
The extreme temperatures and dry conditions itself are a function of human induced climate change that is causing an upward shift in temperatures, as we read in the first story.
Sources to read further:
Afghanistan: Impacted by climate change. Exacerbated by war.
Restaurants near Qargha Lake, Afghanistan, sit on what used to be the lake shore. In the past three years, the surface area of the lake has shrunk by nearly two-thirds due to droughts. (Image: Undark) Most of us probably know about the Taliban regaining power in Afghanistan in 2021, 20 years after they were toppled by the US and allies in 2001.
Since regaining power in 2021, they have been in news for gross human rights violations including rights of women.
However, not much is spoken about the impact of climate change on Afghanistan and how the war has made it worse by significantly reducing the country’s ability to take mitigating actions. The 2021 Global Climate Risk Index ranked Afghanistan as the sixth most affected country globally to climate-related threats, and one of the least prepared against climate shocks.
Afghanistan is already prone to frequent natural disasters, but climate change is making it worse. The effects have become more pronounced in the last couple of years:
Afghanistan’s mean temperature has increased by 1.8 degrees Celsius since 1950, more than twice the global average.
Afghanistan has been facing a severe drought since 2021 that has affected more than 80% of the country population.
At the same time, isolated instances of heavy rainfall is causing flash floods and landslides.
How has Taliban coming into power impacted this?
Financial aid to help locals adapt has drastically dropped after the Taliban came into power as aid agencies do not want to partner with the regime, making relief and rehabilitation efforts after disasters difficult.
Some key positions in climate sectors are filled by Mullahs — or religious scholars — who have zero understanding about climate issues.
Poor water management has made the drought situation worse. The Taliban abolished the National Water Affairs Regulation Authority, the government agency responsible for water management.
Development projects that would have helped the country adapt to climate change (e.g. building dams, renewable energy projects) have been on hold with the international community withdrawing funding after the Taliban take-over.
Sources to read further:
Sunny news
India’s tiger population rises to ~3600, 50 years after Project Tiger was launched in 1973.
The tiger population in India has grown steadily over the last two decades. The numbers published in the Tiger census done every 4 years are:
2006: 1411
2010: 1706
2014: 2226
2018: 2967
2022: 3682
What is Project Tiger?
Between 1875 and 1925 alone, ~ 80,000 tigers were killed in India. Bounty and sports hunting were rampant and by the 1960s, the number of tigers had dwindled precipitously.
Project Tiger was launched in 1973 by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after the animal's numbers became worryingly low with an aim to revive the tiger population.
What can the current increase in the tiger population be attributed to?
A ban on hunting and poaching
Awareness drives among villagers to protect tigers, especially in villages bordering to forests
The project has also taken steps to conserve forests giving tigers a safe home and build forest corridors to ensure the safe passage of tigers from one forested area to another. For example, a young male tiger may use a corridor to disperse onto a newer territory.
Wildlife corridor is a relatively narrow strip of any natural habitat, such as forest, that is suitable for wild animals to use and move between two or more larger forest blocks. Sources to read further:
Paris Metro: An experiment to generate clean energy from passengers
What was the experiment?
Paris metro did an interesting experiment around a simple idea – the everyday metro turnstile, which millions of Parisians use to enter and leave metro stations.
With each commuter passing through a turnstile, kinetic energy is generated as it spins. A mini turbine within the turnstile captures this energy and converts it into electricity.
What was the impact?
A single passenger generates 0.2 Watt of energy.
If this is scaled across the metro system that serves 1.5 bn passengers annually it can generate 136 MW per year
It can save 30,000 ton in greenhouse gas emissions
Isn’t that rather small?
Well, yes. If you compared it to the 300 mn ton of GHG emissions that France emits every year it is in fact less than 0.1%
However, it’s a simple and ingenuous idea that can make a small difference in the right direction.
Source: How Paris metro is harnessing energy from passengers (WEF)
If you liked this edition, please like and share. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to hit subscribe to get future editions delivered to your mailbox.
Great to know that when I go through a metro turnstile I might be helping to reduce impact on climate!