Climate Change
Summer droughts now 20 times more likely due to climate change
Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study.
Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species and led to water restrictions in Europe. It struck places already plagued by drying in the U.S., like the West, but also places where drought is more rare, like the Northeast. China also just had its driest summer in 60 years, leaving its famous Yangtze river half its normal width.
Researchers from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists from around the world who study the link between extreme weather and climate change, say this type of drought would only happen once every 400 years across the Northern Hemisphere if not for human-caused climate change. Now they expect these conditions to repeat every 20 years, given how much the climate has warmed.
Ecological disasters like the widespread drought and then massive flooding in Pakistan, are the “fingerprints of climate change,” Maarten van Aalst, a climate scientist at Columbia University and study co-author, said.
“The impacts are very clear to people and are hitting hard,” he said, “not just in poor countries, like the flooding Pakistan .... but also in some of the richest parts of the world, like western central Europe.”
To figure out the influence of climate change on drying in the Northern Hemisphere, scientists analyzed weather data, computer simulations and soil moisture throughout the regions, excluding tropical areas. They found that climate change made dry soil conditions much more likely over the last several months.
This analysis was done using the warming the climate has already experienced so far, 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit), but climate scientists have warned the climate will get warmer, and the authors of the study accounted for that.
With an additional 0.8 degrees C degrees warming, this type of drought will happen once every 10 years in western Central Europe and every year throughout the Northern Hemisphere, said Dominik Schumacher, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland.
“We’re seeing these compounding and cascading effect across sectors and across regions,” van Aalst said. “One way to reduce those impacts (is) to reduce emissions.”
"We need to invest in transformation of food systems, adaptation to climate change"
Development finance expert Alvaro Lario takes the helm of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development on Saturday with an urgent mission to battle poverty and hunger among the world’s rural poor as they face existential threats of climate change and food insecurity.
Lario, a Spanish national who has served as IFAD’s chief financial officer since 2018, has led efforts to harness private sector investment to boost the resilience of millions of small-scale farmers and rural communities who are among those most affected by global shocks.
“Our mission has never been more urgent as food insecurity, climate change and conflict threaten the lives and livelihoods of the world’s rural poor,” he said.
“But our power to shape the future has never been greater, if we muster the commitment and resources to make lasting change.”
Lario remains committed to IFAD’s goal to double its impact on poor rural communities by 2030.
This will be done in part by driving forward climate change adaptation as a priority for the Fund, according to a message received here from Rome on Friday.
Poor small-scale farmers produce one-third of the world’s food, but receive less than two percent of climate finance and are the least able to adapt to changing circumstances like drought, extreme weather and crop failure.
“We keep moving from crisis to crisis, focusing on immediate relief. But if we want to avoid winding up in the same place again five years from now, we need to invest in the medium term -- and this means nothing less than the transformation of food systems, and adaptation to climate change,” he said.
Read: Bangladesh, Japan, IFAD partner to bring smallholder farmers closer to international markets
“This won’t be done by governments and the UN alone. This is a shared, global challenge for public and private sectors alike since we can all share the benefits of food security and global stability, just as we will all suffer together should we fail to act.”
IFAD, a UN specialized agency which is also an international finance institution, is the only global development agency exclusively dedicated to transforming agriculture, rural economies and food systems by making them more inclusive, productive, resilient and sustainable.
Since 1978, the Fund has invested more than US$23 billion in low-interest loans and grants, reaching more than a half-billion people through projects that increase food security and food production, improve nutrition and build resilience in the world’s poorest and most marginalized rural communities.
In 2020, as both CFO and Associate Vice-President for financial operations, Lario set out to mobilize greater resources for the Fund by enlisting private sector investment.
Under his stewardship, IFAD became the first UN fund to receive a public credit rating.
That A++ rating, through Fitch agency, has enabled IFAD to secure private sector investment, with two initial private-placement bonds in 2022 totalling US$150 million, and more to come.
Lario will serve a four-year term from 1st October, taking over from Gilbert F. Houngbo, a former Togolese prime minister who has become the head of the UN’s International Labor Organization.
Lario has a PhD in financial economics from Complutense University in his native Spain, and a master’s degree in finance from Princeton University. Previous to the Fund, he worked for more than six years in the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank group, and also in various roles in the private sector asset management industry and academia.
UN Resident Coordinator stresses urgency of fighting climate change
UN Resident Coordinator in Dhaka Gwyn Lewis has said climate change is happening today and there are lots of plans and places to mitigate and adapt.
“The voices of young people are being reflected and integrated into these plans. Now we need action. We need to know young people‘s perspectives on climate issues,” she said ahead of the COP27.
To foster climate negotiation and youth voice at the global level, Brighters Society of Bangladesh, with the support of ActionAid Bangladesh organized a virtual two-day long pre-COP conference titled ‘Bangladesh Youth COP 2022’ on September 17-18.
Director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development Prof Saleemul Huq said, “Don’t have high hopes from COP 27. The leaders of the world come together in COP and take some small initiatives. So, only participating in COP is not important.”
He said the climate change problem of yesterday is not the same for today or tomorrow. “We already entered the era of loss and damage of climate change. We need to highlight the loss and damage issues in the COP. Polluters of the world must agree and pay to the sufferers of pollution. Young people need to act as leaders and activists to advocate and engage others.’’
Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP said it is impressive that young people from every corner of Bangladesh are thinking about the whole world.
“We need them to battle against the climate change issues. We are seeing different crises globally because of climate change,” he said.
However, the lawmaker said, the sad reality is that they have not yet found any sustainable solution for it.
“Climate change is an agenda of young people, by the young people and for the young people. It’s high time young people led from the forefront, their voices are heard and acted upon. I think, even though they are the front liners, their concerns are not reflected and often remain unheard at the policy-making level,” he said while speaking as the chief guest at the closing session.
"Bangladesh should not have to carry the burden of climate change alone"
UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change Ian Fry has said the major greenhouse emitting countries have a clear obligation under international law to provide funding to help highly vulnerable countries like Bangladesh to recover from the impacts of climate change."Bangladesh should not have to carry the burden of climate change alone," the UN expert said on Thursday, calling for an international fund to help the South Asian country to recover from the impacts of extreme weather events.He visited some of the most adversely affected regions of Bangladesh and said it is clear to him that the burden of climate change should not be carried by Bangladesh alone.
Read What can COP27 do for climate vulnerable countries?“For too long, major emitting countries have denied their responsibility for the suffering they are causing. This must end," said the UN Special Rapporteur.In a statement at the end of his 10-day visit to Bangladesh to study the impact of climate change in the South Asian nation, Fry said the international community must immediately establish a loss and damage fund to finance the recovery of climate change-affected States.
Fry said women carried an enormous burden of climate change impacts, walking long distances to fetch fresh water, which put them at risk of sexual harassment and kept them from childcare and farming.
Read Aid pours into Pakistan; deaths from floods cross 1,200 markAccording to the Special Rapporteur, women lost livestock, crops and stored seeds in the flash floods of Sylhet, in northeast Bangladesh, and it would take the community at least two years to fully recover.During his visit, the UN expert held meetings online with indigenous peoples who expressed grave concerns about their future, as the logging of their land was destroying traditional livelihoods and making it harder to find freshwater, food and medicine.The logging was a violation of the Bangladesh government’s own programme to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+), the Special Rapporteur said.
Read: UN human rights expert on climate change to visit Bangladesh from Sept 4-15
The government refuses to recognise that these communities are indigenous, and their plight was therefore being ignored, he said.“The issue of climate change displacement was deeply disturbing for me. Millions of people suffering from hardship caused by climate change are migrating to cities to seek other opportunities,” the expert said.“Inevitably these people end up in the slum areas of the major cities, where their basic rights are being denied,” he said.
Read Dangerous heat predicted to hit 3 times more often in futureThe Special Rapporteur said he had received reports that the situation of children in urban slums was particularly dire.“They suffer high rates of malnourishment, school drop-out, child marriage, child labour and abuse,” he said.Fry said he also met with climate change activists who claimed they were being persecuted by the government for protesting against new coal-fired power plants.
Read Northeastern farmers face new challenges with severe drought“The government appears to be using the Digital Protection Act to suppress the voice of climate activists. This is a gross overreaction. People have the right to express their views without being referred to as ‘terrorists’, the UN expert said.Fry will present a report to the UN General Assembly in 2022, focused on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change mitigation, loss, damage and participation – an issue he said was brought sharply into focus during his visit to Bangladesh.A full report on his visit to Bangladesh will be presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2023.
Read Climate change wipes out $525 bn over last 2 decades: Report
What can COP27 do for climate vulnerable countries?
As a result of continuous and rapid changes in climate, natural disasters - such as sea level rise, floods, droughts, river erosion, cyclones, and salinity - are becoming more extreme and destructive with time. It is affecting all the continents of the world. The impacts of climate change are causing loss of crops, and agricultural productions challenging the food security of the world today. In simple words, climate change is threatening the safety of life and property of people and animals around the world.
To fight these issues, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comes in. This 27th edition of the climate conference known as COP27 will take place in November, 2022. Let’s focus on what COP27 can achieve for the climate change affected countries.
What is COP27?
‘Cop’ means ‘Conference of the Parties. It is a United Nations initiative. In 1995, the first conference of COP was held in Berlin, Germany, which took place in a different country every year.
These conventions serve as the formal meeting of the UNFCCC (Conference of the Parties, COP) parties to discuss progress in attempting to alleviate the effects of climate change, and they began attending discussions beginning roughly in the mid-1990s. The conference also negotiated the Kyoto Protocol with an aim to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions.
Read Huge work ahead of COP27; commitments need to turn into action: Robert Dickson
This year COP27 will take place at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, from November 6 to November 18. However, COP 27 was initially expected to occur from November 8-20, 2021. But, due to covid 19 pandemic, COP 26 was rescheduled from November 2020 to November 2021. That led to COP 27 from November 2021 to November 2022.
As of 2019, 197 countries have become UNFCCC members. So, this year it is expected that all the member countries will meet with their valuable proposal for the sake of the environment.
UNFCCC COP27 is going to be an important event regarding environmental pollution and climate change. The conference discusses the risks and solutions to climate change. This event is promising because it will help to create a consensus on how to prevent global climate change.
Read Bangladesh-UK Partnership: Experts to discuss priority climate actions Friday
What Should COP27 Achieve for the Vulnerable Countries?
The COP conference should aim to provide a space for vulnerable countries to share their experiences, learn from each other, and create new ideas on how to prevent climate issues. This would help reduce the risk of another devastating conflict in the future.
Mitigation
COP26 was the very first test of the Paris Agreement’s goal-raising function for mitigating climate change. In other words, preventing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet it fell short of reaching its objectives.
By the end of this century, if member states would implement all changes from the ‘nationally determined contributions or ‘NDCs,’ it would still be predicted that the world’s average temperature would rise by 2.4 degrees Celsius. The COP26 final outcome urges all the parties to increase their targets by 2030 to become compatible with NDCs by 2022. Therefore, COP27 is more significant than the previous COPs.
So, COP27 should achieve a mitigation plan so that the vulnerable countries’ risk gets reduced in the long run.
Read How Can One Person Reduce Environmental Pollution?
Adaptation
The COP26 urges the developed countries to double the adaptation financing along with the launch of a two-year work program towards the Global Goal Adaption (GGA). The GGA conducts international support to lessen the vulnerability of countries to climate change and adapt to the environment through holistic, sustainable development.
Vulnerable countries have been seeking assistance for decades. And it is expected that COP27 will bring out a proper adaptation plan for the affected countries.
Finance
The COP26 summit was a major point of frustration and anger for many developing nations. In particular, they expressed frustration and anger at the failure to deliver on promises of regular financing to assist them in adaptation and mitigation efforts.
There should be a move toward fulfilling historic pledges to provide annual climate financing of $100 billion from 2020 to 2025 every year, but those commitments are yet to be met. So, COP27 can be a milestone for vulnerable countries in getting their expected financing for mitigation and adaptation plans.
Read Effects of Air Pollution on Unborn Children, Neonates, Infants
Global Stocktake
COP 27 will host a Technical Dialogue as part of the 2021-23 global stocktake (GST). The GST will assess progress towards fulfilling the Paris Agreement, happening every five years in sync with the ratchet mechanism.
GST evaluates the progress made toward mitigation, adaptation, and preventive measures, assessing the mechanisms that help lessen climate change and its social effects. COP27 will be a crucial moment for scrutinizing the results of such deals. Hence, this can bring adequate outcomes for the susceptible countries.
Compensation for Loss and Damage
Loss of or damage to the environment refers to violations of the constraints of the natural environment that cannot be prevented by preventive measures or adaptation. Developing countries that are least responsible for climate change seek financial support for that irreparable loss and damages from the countries that are highly responsible for the climate crisis.
So, COP27 should achieve compensation for the affected countries.
Read E-Waste Crisis: Effects of Electronic Waste on Environment and Human Health
Final Words
The COP27 should make progress on agreement signings and declarations, which can help secure more financial support for vulnerable countries. The conference should provide them with new ideas on how to fight climate change, help them build resilience to climate shocks, and give them access to mitigation and adaptation plans. So far, we have discussed what COP27 should achieve for the climate vulnerable countries. Stay with us to know the updates of the COP27 conference in 2022.
Aid pours into Pakistan; deaths from floods cross 1,200 mark
Planes carrying fresh supplies are surging across a humanitarian air bridge to flood-ravaged Pakistan as the death toll surged past 1,200, officials said Friday, with families and children at special risk of disease and homelessness.
The ninth flight from the United Arab Emirates and the first from Uzbekistan were the latest to land in Islamabad overnight as a military-backed rescue operation elsewhere in the country reached more of the 3 million people affected by the disaster.
Two more planes from U.A.E and Qatar with aid will arrive in Pakistan later Friday, and a Turkish train carrying relief goods for flood victims was on its way to the impoverished nation, according to the Foreign Ministry.
Read: UN seeks $160 million in emergency aid for Pakistan floods
Meanwhile, a Turkish delegation headed by Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to convey his condolences to him over damages caused by floods. Multiple officials blamed the unusual monsoon and flooding on climate change, including U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who earlier this week called on the world to stop “sleepwalking” through the deadly crisis.
Guterres will visit Pakistan on Sept. 9 to tour flood-hit areas and meet with officials.
In a statement Friday, the U.N. refugee agency said although the outcome of Tuesday’s funding appeal from the U.N. was “very encouraging," more help is needed.
UNHCR spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said they were quickly releasing tents, as well as blankets, plastic sheets, buckets and other household items for flood victims.
“Our staff in the country report that the scale of the devastation that people face is unimaginable," he said.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that the planes brought food items, medicine and tents. Sharif had planned to travel to UAE on Saturday, but he postponed the trip to visit flood-hit areas at home.
So far, Pakistan has received aid from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Uzbekistan, U.A.E. and some other countries. This week, the United States also announced to provide $30 million worth of aid for the flood victims.
Read: Pakistan fatal flooding has hallmarks of warming
Pakistan blames climate change for the recent heavy monsoon rains that triggered floods.
Asim Iftikhar, the spokesman at Foreign Ministry, said at a news briefing the previous day that the crisis has lent credibility to climate change warnings from scientists.
“This is not a conspiracy, this is a reality and we need to be mindful," he said.
According to initial government estimates, the devastation has caused $10 billion in damages.
Since 1959, Pakistan has emitted about 0.4% of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, compared to 21.5% by the United States and 16.4% by China, according to scientists and experts. Pakistani officials and experts say there’s been a 400% increase in average rainfall in Pakistan's areas like Baluchistan and Sindh, which led to the extreme flooding.
Earlier this week, the United Nations and Pakistan jointly issued an appeal for $160 million in emergency funding to help the 3.3 million people affected by floods that have damaged over 1 million homes.
On Friday, authorities were warning people in the district of Dadu in the southern Sindh province to move to safer places ahead of floodwater from the swollen Indus river that's expected to hit the region this week.
In May, some parts of Sindh were the hottest place in Pakistan. Now people are facing floods there that have caused an outbreak of waterborne diseases. Although flood waters continued to recede in most of the country, many districts in Sindh remained underwater.
Farah Naureen, the director for Pakistan at the international aid agency Mercy Corps, told The Associated Press that around 73,000 women will be giving birth within the next month, and they needed skilled birth attendants, privacy, and birth facilities. Otherwise, she said, the survival of the mother and the newborn will be at risk.
According to the military, rescuers, backed by troops, resumed rescue and relief operations early Friday. Rescuers are mostly using boats, but helicopters are also flying to evacuate stranded people from remote flood-hit towns, villages and districts across Pakistan areas and deliver food to them.
Since mid-June, floods have also killed 733,488 goats, cows, and buffaloes apart from damaging crops. It forced Pakistan's government to start importing vegetables to avoid a shortage of food. Pakistan is also in contact with Russia to import wheat, as floods destroyed grains stored by many villagers in homes to meet their whole year's needs.
Dangerous heat predicted to hit 3 times more often in future
What's considered officially “dangerous heat” in coming decades will likely hit much of the world at least three times more often as climate change worsens, according to a new study.
In much of Earth's wealthy mid-latitudes, spiking temperatures and humidity that feel like 103 degrees (39.4 degrees Celsius) or higher -- now an occasional summer shock — statistically should happen 20 to 50 times a year by mid-century, said a study Monday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
By 2100, that brutal heat index may linger for most of the summer for places like the U.S. Southeast, the study's author said.
Also read: At least 14 potential heat deaths in Oregon after hot spell
And it’s far worse for the sticky tropics. The study said a heat index considered “extremely dangerous” where the feels-like heat index exceeds 124 degrees (51 degrees Celsius) — now something that rarely happens — will likely strike a tropical belt that includes India one to four weeks a year by century's end.
“So that’s kind of the scary thing about this,” said study author Lucas Zeppetello, a Harvard climate scientist. “That’s something where potentially billions of people are going to be exposed to extremely dangerous levels of heat very regularly. So something that's gone from virtually never happening before will go to something that is happening every year.”
Zeppetello and colleagues used more than 1,000 computer simulations to look at the probabilities of two different levels of high heat -- heat indexes of 103 degrees (39.4 Celsius) and above 124 degrees (51 Celsius), which are dangerous and extremely dangerous thresholds according to the U.S. National Weather Service. They calculated for the years 2050 and 2100 and compared that to how often that heat happened each year across the world from 1979 to 1998.
The study found a three- to ten-fold increase in 103-degree heat in the mid-latitudes even in the unlikely best-case scenario of global warming limited to only 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times -- the less stringent of two international goals.
There's only a 5% chance for warming to be that low and that infrequent, the study found. What's more likely, according to the study, is that the 103-degree heat will steam the tropics “during most days of each typical year” by 2100.
Also read: Europe broils in heat wave that fuels fires in France, Spain
Chicago hit that 103 degree heat index level only four times from 1979 to 1998. But the study’s most likely scenario shows Chicago hitting that hot-and-sticky threshold 11 times a year by the end of the century.
Heat waves are one of the new four horsemen of apocalyptic climate change, along with sea level rise, water scarcity and changes in the overall ecosystem, said Zeppetello, who did much of the research at University of Washington state during the warming-charged 2021 heat wave that shattered records and killed thousands.
“Sadly, the horrific predictions shown in this study are credible,” climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, who was not part of the study team, said in an email. “The past two summers have provided a window into our steamy future, with lethal heat waves in Europe, China, northwestern North America, India, the south-central U.S., the U.K., central Siberia, and even New England. Already hot places will become uninhabitable as heat indices exceed dangerous thresholds, affecting humans and ecosystems alike. Areas where extreme heat is now rare will also suffer increasingly, as infrastructure and living things are ill-adapted to the crushing heat.”
The study focuses on the heat index and that’s smart because it’s not just heat but the combination with humidity that hurts health, said Harvard School of Public Health professor Dr. Renee Salas, who is an emergency room physician.
“As the heat index rises, it becomes harder and harder to cool our bodies,” Salas, who wasn’t part of the research team, said in an email. “Heat stroke is a potentially deadly form of heat illness that occurs when body temperatures rise to dangerous levels.”
The study is based on mathematical probabilities instead of other climate research that looks at what happens at various carbon pollution levels. Because of that, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann is more skeptical of this research. It also doesn’t take into account landmark U.S. climate legislation that President Joe Biden signed earlier this month or new efforts by Australia, he said.
“The obstacles at this point are political and no statistical methods, regardless of how powerful or sophisticated can predict whether we will garner the political will to overcome them,” Mann said in an email. “But there is reason for cautious optimism.”
Chinese province plans ban on sale of gasoline cars
Hainan island in the South China Sea says it will become China's first region to ban sales of gasoline- and diesel-powered cars to curb climate-changing carbon emissions.
Sales of fossil fuel-powered cars will be banned by 2030 and electric vehicles promoted with tax breaks and by expanding a charging network, the Hainan provincial government said in a “Carbon Peak Implementation Plan.”
The announcement comes as China struggles through its hottest, driest summer in decades, which has wilted crops and shrunk rivers and reservoirs used for generating hydropower.
Read: China and US spar over climate on Twitter
“By 2030, the whole province will ban sales of fueled vehicles,” according to the plan, which was released Monday.
A deputy Chinese industry minister said in September 2017 that Beijing was working on a plan to stop making and selling gasoline- and diesel-powered cars, but the government has yet to release details.
Hainan aims to have electric vehicles account for 45% of its vehicles by 2030, the plan said. It said cities would develop “zero-emissions zones” where fossil fuel-powered vehicles would be banned.
The ruling Communist Party is promoting electric cars to help clean up China’s smog-choked cities and gain an early lead in a growing industry. China accounted for more than half of last year’s global electric car sales.
Northeastern farmers face new challenges with severe drought
Vermont farmer Brian Kemp is used to seeing the pastures at Mountain Meadows Farm grow slower in the hot, late summer, but this year the grass is at a standstill.
That’s “very nerve-wracking” when you’re grazing 600 to 700 cattle, said Kemp, who manages an organic beef farm in Sudbury. He describes the weather lately as inconsistent and impactful, which he attributes to a changing climate.
“I don’t think there is any normal anymore,” Kemp said.
The impacts of climate change have been felt throughout the Northeastern U.S. with rising sea levels, heavy precipitation and storm surges causing flooding and coastal erosion. But this summer has brought another extreme: a severe drought that is making lawns crispy and has farmers begging for steady rain. The heavy, short rainfall brought by the occasional thunderstorm tends to run off, not soak into the ground.
Water supplies are low or dry, and many communities are restricting nonessential outdoor water use. Fire departments are combatting more brush fires and crops are growing poorly.
Providence, Rhode Island had less than half an inch of rainfall in the third driest July on record, and Boston had six-tenths of an inch in the fourth driest July on record, according to the National Weather Service office in Norton, Massachusetts. Rhode Island’s governor issued a statewide drought advisory Tuesday with recommendations to reduce water use. The north end of the Hoppin Hill Reservoir in Massachusetts is dry, forcing local water restrictions.
Officials in Maine said drought conditions really began there in 2020, with occasional improvements in areas since. In Auburn, Maine, local firefighters helped a dairy farmer fill a water tank for his cows when his well went too low in late July and temperatures hit 90. About 50 dry wells have been reported to the state since 2021, according to the state’s dry well survey.
The continuing trend toward drier summers in the Northeast can certainly be attributed to the impact of climate change, since warmer temperatures lead to greater evaporation and drying of soils, climate scientist Michael Mann said. But, he said, the dry weather can be punctuated by extreme rainfall events since a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture — when conditions are conducive to rainfall, there’s more of it in short bursts.
Mann said there’s evidence shown by his research at Penn State University that climate change is leading to a “stuck jet stream” pattern. That means huge meanders of the jet stream, or air current, get stuck in place, locking in extreme weather events that can alternately be associated with extreme heat and drought in one location and extreme rainfall in another, a pattern that has played out this summer with the heat and drought in the Northeast and extreme flooding in parts of the Midwest, Mann added.
Most of New England is experiencing drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor issued a new map Thursday that shows areas of eastern Massachusetts outside Cape Cod and much of southern and eastern Rhode Island now in extreme, instead of severe, drought.
New England has experienced severe summer droughts before, but experts say it is unusual to have droughts in fairly quick succession since 2016. Massachusetts experienced droughts in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021 and 2022, which is very likely due to climate change, said Vandana Rao, director of water policy in Massachusetts.
“We hope this is maybe one period of peaking of drought and we get back to many more years of normal precipitation,” she said. “But it could just be the beginning of a longer trend.”
Rao and other water experts in New England expect the current drought to last for several more months.
Read: France's going through its most severe drought ever, PM says
“I think we’re probably going to be in this for a while and it’s going to take a lot,” said Ted Diers, assistant director of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services water division. “What we really are hoping for is a wet fall followed by a very snowy winter to really recharge the aquifers and the groundwater.”
Rhode Island’s principal forest ranger, Ben Arnold, is worried about the drought extending into the fall. That’s when people do more yardwork, burn brush, use fireplaces and spend time in the woods, increasing the risk of forest fires. The fires this summer have been relatively small, but it takes a lot of time and effort to extinguish them because they are burning into the dry ground, Arnold said.
Hay farmer Milan Adams said one of the fields he’s tilling in Exeter, Rhode Island, is powder a foot down. In prior years it rained in the spring. This year, he said, the dryness started in March, and April was so dry he was nervous about his first cut of hay.
“The height of the hay was there, but there was no volume to it. From there, we got a little bit of rain in the beginning of May that kind of shot it up,” he said. “We haven’t seen anything since.”
Farmers are fighting more than the drought — inflation is driving up the cost of everything, from diesel and equipment parts to fertilizer and pesticides, Adams added.
“It’s all through the roof right now,” he said. “This is just throwing salt on a wound.”
The yield and quality of hay is down in Vermont too, which means there won’t be as much for cows in the winter, said Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts. The state has roughly 600 dairy farms, a $2 billion per year industry. Like Adams, Tebbetts said inflation is driving up prices, which will hurt the farmers who will have to buy feed.
Kemp, the president of the Champlain Valley Farmer Coalition, is thankful to have supplemental feed from last year, but he knows other farmers who don’t have land to put together a reserve and aren’t well-stocked. The coalition is trying to help farmers evolve and learn new practices. They added “climate-smart farming” to their mission statement in the spring.
“Farming is challenging,” Kemp said, “and it’s becoming even more challenging as climate change takes place.”
AP-NORC poll: Many in US doubt their own impact on climate
Americans are less concerned now about how climate change might impact them personally — and about how their personal choices affect the climate — than they were three years ago, a new poll shows, even as a wide majority still believe climate change is happening.
The June Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, which was conducted before Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act on Friday, shows majorities of U.S. adults think the government and corporations have a significant responsibility to address climate change. The new law will invest nearly $375 billion in climate strategies over the next decade.
Overall, 35% of U.S. adults say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of climate change on them personally, down from 44% in August 2019. Another third say they are somewhat concerned. Only about half say their actions have an effect on climate change, compared with two-thirds in 2019.
Black and Hispanic Americans, women and Democrats are especially likely to be strongly concerned about the impact of climate change on them personally and about how their personal choices affect the climate.
Many climate scientists told The Associated Press that the shifts are concerning but not surprising given that individuals are feeling overwhelmed by a range of issues, now including an economy plagued by inflation after more than two years of a pandemic. In addition to being outpaced by other issues, climate change or the environment are mentioned as priorities by fewer Americans now than just a few years ago, according to the poll.
Diane Panicucci in West Warwick, Rhode Island, believes climate change is happening and that it needs to be addressed. But for her, it’s a lower priority compared with other issues, including inflation and food and drug costs.
“There’s so much unrest in this country right now,” the 62-year-old said. “People are suffering.”
Panicucci added solar panels to her house, and she’s cut back on driving. She thinks individuals should do what they’re told will help, but “it doesn’t start with little ol’ me. It has to be larger scale,” she said.
While the climate crisis will require an “all of the above approach,” it’s “reasonable” that individuals don’t feel they have the bandwidth to tackle climate action “on top of everything else,” said Kim Cobb, director of the Institute at Brown University for Environment and Society.
Roughly two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. federal government, developed countries abroad and corporations and industries have a large responsibility to address climate change. Fewer — 45% — say that of individual people.
Jack Hermanson, a 23-year-old software engineer, feels strongly that corporations are the “major culprits” of emissions and that the government is complicit in that behavior.
“I don’t know if that makes sense to say that individuals should have to work and fix the climate,” the Denver resident said. “I would say my individual actions hardly mean anything at all.”
Read: Climate Change: Biden's administration urged to take genuine leadership role
U.S. household greenhouse gas emissions are not as much as those from cars, trucks and other transportation, electrical power generating and industry. A 2020 University of Michigan study of 93 million U.S. homes estimates that 20% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions comes from home energy use, with wealthier Americans’ per capita footprints about 25% higher than low-income residents.
But like many others that spoke to the AP, that difference hasn’t stopped Hermanson from trying. He’s been a vegetarian for four years, and he tries to bike or take public transportation, buy products with less packaging and recycle.
Among Americans who believe in climate change, 70% say it will be necessary for individuals to make major lifestyle changes to combat the issue. Most think individuals have at least some responsibility.
Individuals can believe they personally don’t have a direct impact while also recognizing that collective action is essential to combatting climate change, said Shahzeen Attari, who studies human behavior and climate change at Indiana University.
The poll shows about 6 in 10 Americans say they have reduced their driving, reduced their use of heat or air conditioning and bought used products instead of new ones. Nearly three-quarters are using energy efficient appliances. Among those who are taking those steps, most say the main reason is to save money, rather than to help the environment.
Fewer — roughly a quarter — say they use an electricity supplier that gets power from renewable sources, and only about 1 in 10 live in a home with solar panels or drive a hybrid or electric car.
Brad Machincia, a 38-year-old welder, said he wouldn’t switch from his gas car to an electric vehicle. While he said he grew up in a West Virginia household that used renewable energy sources, he hasn’t adopted those practices for his family in Christiansburg, Virginia. Climate change used to be a concern for him, but at this point, he feels like it’s “beating a dead horse.”
“There’s nothing we can do to fix it,” he said.
Individuals should feel empowered to make climate-driven decisions that not only help reduce emissions but also improve their lives, said Jonathan Foley, executive director at climate nonprofit Project Drawdown. Foley thinks the findings show that efforts to engage Americans need to shift away from doomsday scenarios, include diverse messengers and focus on the ways climate solutions can intersect with Americans’ other priorities.
Julio Carmona, a 37-year-old financial clerk, said he recently transitioned his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to solar energy because the switch will help reduce his carbon footprint and his expenses, even if modestly.
“I thought that it was just something smart for us to do long term,” he said. “I just kind of wanted to do my part, whether or not it’s gonna make a difference.”