{"id":124,"date":"2021-09-02T14:28:38","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T14:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/?p=124"},"modified":"2021-09-02T14:33:06","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T14:33:06","slug":"alarms-bells-in-western-europe-has-climate-change-just-introduced-itself-to-the-continent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/2021\/09\/02\/alarms-bells-in-western-europe-has-climate-change-just-introduced-itself-to-the-continent\/","title":{"rendered":"Alarms bells in Western Europe – has climate change just introduced itself to the continent?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Was this then the summer when Climate Change finally came to\u00a0make itself at home in the consciousness of\u00a0Western\u00a0Europeans?\u00a0In recent years, we have watched from\u00a0a distance as extreme weather-related disasters have struck\u00a0different regions across the\u00a0planet\u00a0in turn.\u00a0Australia<\/a>,\u00a0Greece<\/a>,\u00a0and the West coast of North America<\/a>\u00a0have experienced\u00a0devastating wildfires, and widespread death and destruction.\u00a0Storms, severe floods, and landslides\u00a0affected upwards of 30 million people in the Philippines<\/a> and Vietnam<\/a> in 2020 alone. While this year, in Africa, there is growing consensus that Madagascar<\/a> is suffering\u00a0through the modern world\u2019s first climate change-induced famine.\u00a0This new phenomenon compounds\u00a0the already worsening conditions in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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More than 500 million children face acute malnourishment Photo: WFP\/TSIORY ANDRIANTSOARANA<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Is it reasonable to say that Western Europe was without its own \u2018flagship\u2019 climate change episode prior to the July 2021 floods across Germany, Belgium and other countries? In my own view, there has certainly been an imperceptible shift in thinking when it comes to climate, and man-made emissions this year. It might have something to do with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and a heightened awareness of our world\u2019s fragility. Maybe people are beginning to realise that things can go wrong rapidly, and when they do, they are rarely ever the same. Whether a newfound awareness leads to mitigative action is up for debate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July, when torrential rainfall caused flooding that led to the deaths of 196 people in Germany, and 42 in Belgium (with other countries impacted to a lesser degree), climate change forced itself to the front of the news cycle. The release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u2019s (IPCC) 2021 report followed in August, and suddenly, the mother of all crises was front page news. From Deutsche Welle to the BBC, news stations across the continent were dominated with reports disseminating the critical information outlined in the IPCC\u2019s report. One key piece of information zoned in on was the research indicating man-made global warming has increased the severity of downpours in the flood-impacted regions by up to 20%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Before
Before and After pictures show the devastation in Germany Photo: Deutsche Welle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The IPCC were unequivocal in their assertion that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the primary cause of the increased number of extreme weather events. The World Weather Attribution group connected climate change with the horrific heat-dome covering much of Canada and the United States, and noted a correlation between the Australian bushfires of 2020, and increased periods of dry weather. Forecasting, led by the same group, has indicated extreme rainfall to be between 1.2 and 9 times more likely to happen in the flood-ravaged European countries due to the climate crisis, and that these rainfall events will be between 3% and 19% more intense (Kreienkamp et al. 2021).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will this information hit home? Are the public going to put enough pressure on the politicians to incite changes in the continent\u2019s climate policies? Do the politicians, and major industrial players care? We know that Western European countries are major polluters. We understand that on an individual level, many of us consume far too much, and can change our lifestyles for the better. We are fortunate to live in a relatively secure part of the world in terms of resilience in the face of a changing climate. But we owe it to the rest of the world, many of them so vulnerable to the volatility and violence of climate change, to limit our emissions now. Is this is the summer where things change for the better. Is this the summer where Western Europe was finally woken up? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bilbliography<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kreienkamp, F. (2021). Rapid attribution of heavy rainfall events leading to the severe flooding in Western Europe during July 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. P\u00e9an, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelek\u00e7i, R. Yu and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Was this then the summer when Climate Change finally came to\u00a0make itself at home in the consciousness of\u00a0Western\u00a0Europeans?\u00a0In recent years, we have watched from\u00a0a distance as extreme weather-related disasters have struck\u00a0different regions across the\u00a0planet\u00a0in turn.\u00a0Australia,\u00a0Greece,\u00a0and the West coast of North America\u00a0have experienced\u00a0devastating wildfires, and widespread death and destruction.\u00a0Storms, severe floods, and landslides\u00a0affected upwards of 30 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Alarms bells in Western Europe – has climate change just introduced itself to the continent?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,45,44,46,50,48,47,49],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-climate-change","tag-europe","tag-famine","tag-german-floods","tag-germany","tag-natural-disasters","tag-weather-disasters","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/daire-houlihan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}