Remember the days when we were told about El Nina and El Nino? Some years were supposed to be hotter and the other year will be cooler. Nowadays, we have started to see wild swings in temperature within the year and even weeks. We have Climate Change to blame.
2023 is now officially the warmest year on record based on 174 years of data. The average temperature has risen by +1.2 degrees Celsius and it is on track to be +1.5 very soon. If nothing is being done to slow it down, we might see +2.1 by 2030 according to world climate bodies like COP28 in Dec 2023. The 10 warmest years on record are now 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Everyone assumed that the global shutdown due to the pandemic would have slowed Climate Change but the rising temperature trend is accelerating.
Everyone around the world is experiencing this phenomenon first-hand. We are starting to see very short winters with little snow in ski resorts this year while some parts can experience sudden temporary drops in temperature. America and parts of China just had -50 degrees Celsius weather recently in Jan.
I had also personally experienced wild swings of temperature that were very unusual and had not happened before. We were in Osaka last Aug and it was 36 degrees C at noon while we were trying to run around Universal Studio. Then in HK last Dec, we arrived at 7 degrees temperature and in less than a week, it rose to 22 degrees.
Based on the latest article from Reuters, Feb 2024 seems to be on track to be the hottest Feb on record. Even the expected annual Cherry Blossom is almost a month earlier this year because of it. The sudden warm weather is wreaking havoc on travel plans as no one can rely on traditional reliable historical data to plan for vacations anymore.
There is now an urgency by scientists and governments to address Climate Change head-on before it is too late and becomes irreversible. The main focus is two prongs – to generate more renewable energy sources and to promote carbon capture initiatives.
On the renewable front, there is the push to use natural sources like solar, wind and hydro to provide clean energy instead of using traditional dirty materials like coal and gas that pollute the atmosphere. The long-term effect of using carbon fuels is that it will cause Earth’s surfaces to capture heat, resulting in a greenhouse warming effect.
Many governments are also introducing Carbon tax to strongly encourage corporations to switch to cleaner forms of energy. But without global Carbon standards, it is very difficult for corporations to buy carbon credits to offset their carbon-negative activities to reduce their tax burden.
The Greenwashing saga of the last 12 months also did not help. What was supposed to be Green investments turned out not to be, creating more investors’ distrust looking to enter into this Green space. There is an urgency for a co-ordinated push to slow climate change on a global level but we see so many obstacles along the way. No country is certain if their country’s efforts alone can help to move the needle. Yet if we don’t try, the global warming trend will be inevitable.
We are seeing climate change news everywhere nowadays. It is competing with AI (Artificial Intelligence) for space as newspapers report irregular changes in weather patterns that cannot be explained away that easily. The facts are indisputable that Mother Gaia is a sick puppy in need of draconian measures to reverse course before it is too late.
Can we do it? The crystal ball is very clouded and unclear at the moment. We will need a champion to direct global efforts to make it happen. The fact that this is so visible around all of us should have been a hard wake-up call to start doing something now.
Leave a Reply