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Heatwave death threat soars for elderly, city dwellers
By Patrick GALEY
Paris (AFP) Nov 29, 2018

2018 temperatures set to be among hottest on record: UN
Geneva (AFP) Nov 29, 2018 - Global temperatures in 2018 are set to be the fourth highest on record, the UN said Thursday, stressing the urgent need for action to rein in runaway warming of the planet.

In a report released ahead of the COP 24 climate summit in Poland, the World Meteorological Organization pointed out that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, and that "2018 is on course to be the 4th warmest year on record."

"This would mean that the past four years - 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 - are also the four warmest years in the series," the UN agency said in its provisional report on the state of the climate this year.

The "warming trend is obvious and continuing," WMO chief Petteri Taalas told reporters in Geneva.

The report shows that the global average temperature for the first 10 months of the year was nearly 1.0-degree Celsius above the pre-industrial era (1850-1900).

- 'Last generation' -

"It is worth repeating once again that we are the first generation to fully understand climate change and the last generation to be able to do something about it," Taalas warned.

With levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the main driver of climate change, at a record high, "we may see temperature increase of 3-5C by the end of the century," Taalas said.

"If we exploit all known fossil fuel resources, the temperature rise will be considerably higher."

Delegations from nearly 200 countries are due in Poland next week for the latest COP24 climate summit, aimed at renewing and building on the Paris deal and limiting global warming.

World leaders have been trying to breathe new life into the 195-nation agreement amid backsliding from several nations -- most notably the United States -- over commitments made when it was signed in December 2015.

It is to take effect in 2020 and calls for limiting global warming to less than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

But experts warn that global warming is on track to surpass three degrees by 2100 and urge governments to do more than first planned to rein it in.

"Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life," WMO deputy chief Elena Manaenkova stressed in a statement.

"It makes a difference to economic productivity, food security, and to the resilience of our infrastructure and cities," she said.

"It makes a difference to the speed of glacier melt and water supplies, and the future of low-lying islands and coastal communities."

More than 150 million vulnerable people worldwide were exposed to potentially life-threatening heatwaves last year, scientists said Thursday, warning that climate change posed an unprecedented global health risk.

In a worldwide stocktake of public health trends, dozens of international agencies said people over 65, those living in large cities, and sufferers of heart and lung disease were all at heightened risk of death or disability from extreme heat.

The warning came as the United Nations' meteorological body said that the last four years including 2018 were the four warmest on record.

Globally, a total of 153 billion work hours were lost due to heat exposure in 2017, including seven percent of all labour time in India, the authors said, adding that the cost of keeping people safe from heatwaves was likely to balloon as our planet warms.

The outlook is particularly dire for Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, where mounting temperatures and an ageing population produced a "perfect storm" of risk factors, according to the study's lead author.

"For a very, very long time we have thought about climate change as something that effects the environment some time in 2100," Nick Watts, executive director of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, told AFP.

"When you look at climate change as a public health issue, it really turns it on its head. It isn't just affecting polar bears or rainforests, it's something that affects communities, children, families in the UK and Europe and around the world."

- Agriculture struggling -

The study team comprised experts from 27 institutions worldwide who mapped a variety of climate and health trends.

Watts and his team found that while global temperatures have risen 0.3C since the mid-1980s, for those most at risk of heat exposure the average temperature rise experienced was more than double -- 0.8C.

This was attributed to a mixture of factors, including migration to cities -- vulnerable to heatwaves through the "urban heat island effect", as well as more extreme localised heat as climate change wreaks havoc with our weather systems.

"If you just look at heat, you can see what heatwaves are doing," said Watts.

"If you do what we are publishing, you end up seeing that populations are ageing, they are migrating and they are growing into the areas worst affected by climate change."

Around 80 percent of all work hours lost to extreme heat were in agriculture, with India the worst hit in terms of total hours lost.

Scientists in July said climate change was making heatwaves roughly twice as likely to occur by 2040.

Using their varied health and climate metrics, the Lancet study authors said they had detected 18 million more at-risk people exposed to dangerous levels of heat than just two years ago.

- 'Overwhelmed' -

Days before officials gather in Poland for talks aimed at finalising the Paris agreement climate goals, the authors said governments were failing their populations by underfunding core health infrastructure to protect against extreme weather.

They said healthcare spending to adapt to climate change increased by 3.1 percent to �11.68 billion ($14.9 bn, 13.2 billion euros) globally, which falls well short of the commitments made in the 2015 Paris accord.

"When you read through many governments' heat plans they are planning for heat as it has been historically," said Watts.

"Unless governments are preparing plans that take into account the fact that we are going to see a heck of a lot more of this, those plans are going to get overwhelmed."


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WEATHER REPORT
Extreme heat increasing in both summer and winter
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 27, 2018
A new study shows extreme heat events both in the summer and in the winter are increasing across the U.S. and Canada, while extreme cold events in summer and winter are declining. A new study in the in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, examined absolute extreme temperatures - high temperatures in summer and low temperatures in winter - but also looked at relative extreme temperature events - unusually cold temperatures and unusually warm ... read more

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