New Delhi recorded its highest temperature ever on Wednesday — 126 degrees Fahrenheit, or 52.3 degrees Celsius. For weeks now, temperatures in several Indian states have been well over 110, and hospitals have been reporting a rise in heatstroke.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/world/asia/india-delhi-hottest-day-ever.html?smtyp=cur&smid=bsky-nytime

April Heat Waves from Gaza to the Philippines Were Made Worse by Climate Change | Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/april-heat-waves-from-gaza-to-the-philippines-were-made-worse-by-climate/

Extreme heat has left hundreds of millions of people sweltering in record-breaking temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past few weeks across a broad swath of Asia. From the Palestinian territories in the west to India, Thailand and the Philippines to the east, scorching conditions have caused at least dozens of deaths, ruined crops and forced thousands of school closures. Relentless heat waves have worsened the already precarious conditions for those living in refugee camps and in makeshift housing in dense urban areas. And the 1.2 degrees C of warming the world has already experienced has significantly cranked up such events’ severity, a new analysis shows.

Chaos in the Heavens:
The Forgotten History of Climate Change

POLITICIANS AND SCIENTISTS HAVE DEBATED CLIMATE CHANGE FOR CENTURIES IN TIMES OF RAPID CHANGE

Nothing could seem more contemporary than climate change. Yet, in Chaos in the Heavens, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Fabien Locher show that we have been thinking about and debating the consequences of our actions upon the environment for centuries. The subject was raised wherever history accelerated: by the conquistadors in the New World, by the French revolutionaries of 1789, by the scientists and politicians of the nineteenth century, by the European imperialists in Asia and Africa until the Second World War.

Climate change was at the heart of fundamental debates about colonisation, God, the state, nature, and capitalism. From these intellectual and political battles emerged key concepts of contemporary environmental science and policy. For a brief interlude, science and industry instilled in us the reassuring illusion of an impassive climate. But, in the age of global warming, we must, once again, confront the chaos in the heavens.

Chaos in the Heavens: The Forgotten History of Climate Change | Verso Books
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2725-chaos-in-the-heavens

SHEFIK: i jaro není co bývalo

India saw a 55% rise in deaths due to extreme heat between 2000-2004 and 2017-2021, a recent study published in the medical journal, The Lancet, has found.

Exposure to heat also caused a loss of 167.2 billion potential labour hours among Indians in 2021, the study noted.

This, it adds, resulted in loss of incomes equivalent to about 5.4% of the country's GDP.

India has faced increasingly intense heatwaves in recent years.

India heatwave: High temperatures killing more Indians now, Lancet study finds
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63384167

A k tomu ještě dodám, že ať už Indie, nebo Jihovýchodní Asie jsou velmi důležitými producenty základních potravin jako rýže, pšenice, a nebo kukuřice, a tyto plodiny potřebují specifické podmínky pro růst a i samotný výnos s rostoucí teplotou prudce klesá.

Dovolím si sdílet rozhovor s thajským vědcem a vládním poradcem, který byl zveřejněn před dvěma dny.
Uninhabitable earth pattern is coming, says analyst as Southeast Asia scorches | ABS-CBN News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzBGeRwIL3g

Mosquito-borne diseases spreading in Europe due to climate crisis, says expert | Climate crisis | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/25/mosquito-borne-diseases-spreading-in-europe-due-to-climate-crisis-says-expert

Prof Rachel Lowe who leads the global health resilience group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, has warned that mosquito-borne disease outbreaks are set to spread across currently unaffected parts of northern Europe, Asia, North America and Australia over the next few decades.

1.8 Million Barrels of Oil a Day Avoided from Electric Vehicles - CleanTechnica
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/09/1-8-million-barrels-of-oil-a-day-avoided-from-electric-vehicles/

Two- and three-wheeled EVs account for about 60% of the oil demand avoided in 2023 due to their rapid adoption and large fleet, particularly in China, Southeast Asia and India.

...

Naturally, less oil being burnt means less CO2 emissions. BNEF estimates that electric vehicles currently prevent 112 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year. And this is net emissions reductions, also taking into account the emissions from extra electricity generation.

Rising methane could be a sign that Earth's climate is part-way through a 'termination-level transition'
https://theconversation.com/rising-methane-could-be-a-sign-that-earths-climate-is-part-way-through-a-termination-level-transition-211211

In the past few million years, Earth’s climate has flipped repeatedly between long, cold glacial periods, with ice sheets covering northern Europe and Canada, and shorter warm inter-glacials.

When each ice age ended, Earth’s surface warmed by as much as several degrees centigrade over a few millennia. Recorded in air bubbles in ice cores, sharply rising methane concentrations are the bellwethers of these great climate-warming events. With each flip from a glacial to an interglacial climate there have been sudden, sharp rises in atmospheric methane, likely from expanding tropical wetlands.

These great climate flips that ended each ice age are known as terminations. Each has a Roman numeral, ranging from Termination IX which happened about 800,000 years ago to Termination IA which initiated the modern climate less than 12,000 years ago. For example, around 131,000 years ago during Termination II, the British climate suddenly flipped from glaciers in the Cotswolds to hippopotami wallowing in what is now Trafalgar Square.

Full terminations take several thousands of years to complete, but many include a creeping onset of warming, then a very abrupt phase of extremely rapid climate change that can take a century or less, followed by a longer, slower period during which the great ice caps finally melt. In the abrupt phase of the great change that brought about the modern climate, Greenland’s temperature rose by around 10°C within a few decades. During these abrupt phases, methane climbs very steeply indeed.

...

Methane fluctuated widely in pre-industrial times. But its increasingly rapid growth since 2006 is comparable with records of methane from the early years of abrupt phases of past termination events, like the one that warmed Greenland so dramatically less than 12,000 years ago.

There is already lots of evidence that the climate is shifting. Atlantic ocean currents are slowing, tropical weather regions are expanding, the far north and south are warming fast, ocean heat is breaking records and extreme weather is becoming routine.

In glacial terminations, the entire climate system reorganises. In the past, this took Earth out of stable ice age climates and into warm inter-glacials. But we are already in a warm interglacial. What comes next is hard to imagine: loss of sea ice in the Arctic in summer, thinning or partial collapse of the ice caps in Greenland and West Antarctica, reorganisation of the Atlantic’s ocean currents and the poleward expansion of tropical weather circulation patterns. The consequences, both for the biosphere in general and food production in south and east Asia and parts of Africa in particular, would be very significant

As the ice melts, a perilous Russian threat is emerging in the Arctic | Barry Gardiner | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/13/arctic-russia-nato-putin-climate

The eight Arctic states – Canada, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the US and Russia – have long collaborated on scientific research through the Arctic Council, a non-military body. Until now. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Arctic Council meetings ceased. So did cooperation with Russia. This has hampered progress on climate and environmental research and turbocharged the militarisation of the Arctic.

The success of the Arctic Council depended on its geopolitical balance. It is not a security alliance and has always tried to remain independent from politics. Five of the eight countries were part of Nato; the other three were not. That has now changed. Finland joined Nato in April. Sweden is in the process of joining. Soon, Nato will literally be surrounding Russia in the Arctic.

To understand why this matters, we must first understand the climate emergency taking place in the region. Summer sea ice has declined by 30% in the past 30 years; 90% of old ice, which is classified as five years old or more, has gone. That ice used to act as the great heat shield for the planet, reflecting back the sun’s rays. But the loss of ice is producing a vicious spiral of heating. The Arctic is now warming three times faster than the global average. This process is called Arctic amplification. It means that scientists now project an Arctic free from summer ice by 2040–45.

As the ice cover is lost, a trans-polar route is opening to connect east Asia to Europe and the eastern coast of North America. And the ice barrier that once protected Russia’s northern shore will be exposed as never before. Russia represents 53% of the Arctic coastline and the need to protect its northern border as the ice barrier melts is a key national security concern.

Vladimir Putin already had ambitious plans for the northern sea route, seeking to more than double the cargo traffic. But over the past six years, Russia has also built 475 military sites along its northern border. The port of Severomorsk, on the Kola peninsula, is the base of the country’s northern fleet. In recent years, the Russians have reactivated 50 Soviet outposts in the Arctic and equipped its northern fleet with nuclear and conventional missiles.

The challenge of all this has not been purely logistical. As the permafrost thaws, the structural base for roads, buildings and other key infrastructure has collapsed. Russia is trying to deploy huge amounts of infrastructure and military capacity to build structures on land that is disintegrating, across roads that are disappearing

...

On a recent visit to the Ny-Ålesund international research station on Svalbard, it was depressing to hear that scientific cooperation with Russia on climate matters has effectively ceased. The Arctic is an environment where cooperation is essential. Arctic science must be done over the long term, and the relationships and trust built up between partners offer predictability and greater stability. In a region that is becoming over-securitised, every opportunity to minimise accidental misunderstandings and avoid a military response should be seized.

A militarised Arctic would undermine scientific cooperation and pose an existential threat. Somehow, we need a diplomatic effort to separate the politics of war from the imperatives of climate research.

Severe heatwave engulfs Asia causing deaths and forcing schools to close | Asia Pacific | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2023/apr/19/severe-heatwave-asia-deaths-schools-close-india-china

A severe heatwave has swept across much of Asia, causing deaths and school closures in India and record-breaking temperatures in China.

Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian, described the unusually high temperatures as the “worst April heatwave in Asian history”.

https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1648676699846893568?s=19

TUHO: Zajimavej nahled na Novou hedvabnou stezku - Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

With its BRI, China is propagating the global vision of a Global Energy Interconnection (GEI; see Map 1). This study focuses on three macro-regions within the EuropeAsian continental area: Europe (consisting of the EU and its eastern, southern and southeastern neighbourhoods as well as the Middle East and North Africa); two Eurasian subregions (the South Caucasus and Central Asia); and Asia (with its subregions South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia).

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19452829.2019.1633734

The first reason for the argument that the richest should be the primary funders of climate actions is the one given in the previous section, which relates to overall welfare improvement: the surplus money of the superrich cannot be used to enhance their well-being; however, it could be more beneficial if it were invested wisely in climate action strategies. A modified version of the first reason is as follows. More and more climate experts and writers on climate change (e.g., Gardiner 2011) are claiming that we are dealing with a real disaster. Thus, if the issue of climate change is unlike our many everyday problems, then it is appropriate to apply the principle that anyone who can help, should help, although the ablest are expected to carry the most onerous burdens. This approach has led several philosophers to conclude that we should adopt “the ability to contribute principle” and that we should focus on those who are in a position to make a difference (Caney 2014; Shue 2015).

The second reason for the argument that the richest should be the primary funders of climate actions is related to the unfairness in the current situation. If one compares countries, then historically Europe has been responsible for many emissions, although North America’s current average emissions per capita are much higher than the average emissions of other geographic regions. For example, the global average emissions arising from consumption amount to about 6.2 tons per person per year (and this should stand closer to zero in a few decades if we intend to avoid dangerous climate change). Nonetheless, the differences are enormous: 22.5 tons for North America; 13.1 tons for Europe; 7.4 tons for the Middle East; 6 tons for China; 4.4 tons for Latin America; 2.2 tons for South Asia and 1.9 tons for Africa (Chancel and Piketty 2015). These averages tend to hide the vast inequalities within the countries in these regions, and that rich people everywhere can have lifestyles that cause emissions of up to 300 tons. Hence, Chancel and Piketty (2015) suggest imposing a global flat tax on air tickets, which could be used to fund climate adaptation measures. While I endorse this idea and have argued elsewhere that a tax on air travel is needed not only for climate reasons but also for economic fairness among different transport sectors (Robeyns 2019), I believe that this measure hardly goes far enough. Ideally, we should levy a worldwide ecological crisis tax on the superrich to finance the climate action funds. If that is not possible, governments should take the initiative to establish international agreements on what each country contributes to the global funds, and each country could on their own tax their most affluent citizens. Either way, the aim is to let the superwealthy contribute first to the climate action funds.

There are at least two aspects to the fairness reason for charging the rich for climate actions funds. The first argument is based on principles of rectification or compensation. Most superrich people have acquired their wealth by engaging in economic activities with negative environmental externalities. Market prices in themselves do not reflect the environmental damage embedded in the production and transport of commodities. If the environmental damage linked to economic production were appropriately incorporated in the prices (or as economists would put it, the negative externalities had been internalised), the prices would increase, causing demand and profits to fall. Hence, the fortunes of the superrich partially consist of non-paid compensation for environmental damage. The second aspect is that in some countries, the situation is even worse, mainly because the government directly or indirectly subsidises fossil fuel industries. Thus, part of the wealth of the superrich who own companies or work for them in these countries represents the ecological damage that has been passed onto society at large. Hence, from a fairness point of view, one can argue that compensation for these past negative ecological externalities could now be used to fund the climate action funds.