opinion

Shortly ago, a research group on climate change said that the whole world is suffering from a severe swelter.

According to it, there is a possibility that powerful El Nino, which caused high temperatures worldwide, will disappear and La Nina, which cools the Pacific region, will be formed between July and September, but El Nino will have an influence for some time.

The meteorological information agency of the European Union reported that the world average temperature from May last year to April this year rose by 1.61℃ over the period before the Industrial Revolution.

It by far exceeds the climate-related goal set by the Paris agreement on climate change to restrict the extent of global temperature rise to less than 1.5℃ from that in the pre-Industrial Revolution period.

Since June last year became the hottest June in the history of earth observation, the average world temperature every month has continued to renew the previous records.

 In April this year the global average temperature was 0.67℃ higher than the average April temperature in the period between 1991 and 2020 to become the hottest April in history.

As a result, high temperatures beyond the existing common sense are recorded throughout the world including Asia and Europe with no difference between continents and regions. 

It is early summer, but in some countries the temperature exceeds over 40-50℃ with strong sunshine.  

In northern India, fierce heat exceeding 50℃ has dragged on from the end of May. On June 1, the Indian government said that more than 25 000 have been suffering from heatstroke and 56 lost their lives since March.

As abnormal swelter over 40℃ continued, Greece took an emergency measure to close the ancient heritage sites from noon to 17.

In Thailand, the temperature began to soar to over 50℃ in April and therefore outdoor activities were disallowed and classes were suspended at schools.

Intense heat of over 40℃ hit most of Turkey and forest fires caused by high temperature occurred in five regions at the same time on June 12.

The Cambodian meteorological authorities said that their country was faced with the hottest weather in 170 years and the Malaysian meteorological authorities sounded an alarm to warn of high temperature in regions where high temperatures were observed every day. 

The last glacier in the Andes completely disappeared due to temperature rise in Venezuela. So it became the first country where the glacier died out.

Now the international community is afraid that 2024 would be a year of climatic disaster.

Saying that it is the greatest task facing mankind to cope with climate change and there is no time to wait any more, the World Meteorological Organization calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions sharply and accelerating the transition to renewable energy.