The fight against climate change in the United States has also become a political struggle. The most denialists of the Republican Party have dedicated themselves to blocking all types of negotiations to reduce emissions and maintain, at all costs, their ‘anti-climate’ policy. Now is no exception. The high temperatures that have begun to be experienced in recent years have already caused hundreds of forest fires, floods, rains, among other natural phenomena, which are causing damage to the environment and generating changes in society. Despite this, they do not give their arm to twist to take new measures.
Just this July temperatures have been reached never before seen and has been considered one of the hottest months in recent years. This has led to several unprecedented wildfires and deadly heat waves around the world. The United States, for example, only a few weeks ago was affected by the wave of fires that ravaged Canada and the city of New York was covered with smoke, which generated various problems for citizens.
However, denialist politicians continue to think that climate does not affect or have any relation to climate change. For example, Texas Senator John Cornyn said when asked about his link to climate change, he was “always” taught that “climate is not the same as weather.” So the expert does not give importance to this relationship. Even Cornyn said correlating recent heatwaves and wildfires and climate change was “arrogance.”
Some top Republicans on Capitol Hill said the recent weather doesn’t move them to take a more aggressive stance on global warming, which is primarily caused by humans’ burning of fossil fuels. “I hope we don’t get swayed by the news of the moment,” said Rep. John Curtis, a Utah Republican who chairs the Conservative Climate Solutions Caucus. “I think sometimes we need to be careful when we look at anomalies in the weather as to whether or not they are part of a larger pattern or news of the moment. Since I’m not a scientist, I don’t spend much time worrying about that.”
However, experts in this area continue to insist that if these weather phenomena are not addressed, the next few years will be even worse. Ignoring, this political side has denied and expressed its doubts about climate change. For example, last year the Democrats voted for the climate law, but no Republican voted in favor. Although he finally got the green light, today the ‘anti-greens’ have even postponed measures to repeal measures of this regulation.
Although this group has also proposed some measures. Among them they want to boost energy efficiency, nuclear power, and carbon capture, and domestic oil and gas production because “fossil fuels are produced cleaner and more efficiently in America.” However, they do not include any type of mechanism to limit emissions or for the use of fossil fuels, falling into one of the most important factors to combat climate change and prevent natural phenomena such as those of this July.
Europe and the world, affected by the heat wave
The United States is not the only country that has been hit by high temperatures. Canada, Italy, Spain, Greece and others have been affected by both heat and torrential rains unusual for the dates. The problem is that it is not only affecting the environment, but these phenomena also hit the economy and summer tourism this season. In Greece they have had to evacuate thousands of tourists due to forest fires, the same situation as in Sardinia, Italy.
Some European destinations “will suffer” in the summer months when “there is nowhere to escape the heat,” said Eduardo Santander, executive director of the European Travel Commission. For this same reason, scientists say that it will worsen this situation and that we must focus on it. A study by Karsten Haustein, climatologist at the University of Leipzig (Germany), ditches that July will be the hottest month ever recorded, and may have been the hottest in 120,000 years, with an average temperature about 1.5°C warmer than the planet was before warming by burning coal, oil and gas, and other human activities.
“The effects of the El Niño phenomenon This year will be felt even more strongly in global surface temperatures in 2024, so if the world sets a new record in 2023 it is likely to be exceeded quickly. The only way to prevent the Earth from warming further and the extreme events associated with climate change from worsening is to reduce global CO2 emissions to net zero,” said Zeke Hausfather, a researcher at Berkeley Earth during the presentation of the report.
