Take climate change seriously as extremes worsen

As world meets this week to discuss climate extremes, one only has to look out the window to see that weather norms are changing. Donald Trump has empowered the climate change deniers all over the world, much as he has propelled right-wing politics back into the spotlight. But, as the world meets this week to discuss climate extremes, one only has to look at the TV – or even outside the window – to see our weather norms are changing. We haven’t even started to feel the effects of the biggest El Nino weather phenomenon yet recorded and, all around the world, the effects of change are evident – from the mass flash flood in Nepal, to fires and heatwaves in Europe, to centuries-old villages in England regularly threatened with inundation by rivers bursting their banks. United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has urged leaders at the COP31 climate conference in Türkiye to “get serious”. He added: “We have entered a new age of climate extremes.” The UN’s World Meteorological Organisation reported that this year has continued a streak of exceptional global temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels. Each of the past 12 years have been among the hottest 12 years on record, the agency said, with this year expected to be among the hottest yet. Those are real and potentially dangerous changes… not a conspiracy. So let’s take this seriously.