The earth boils and divides societies

The multiplication of climate events reflects the intensification of climate change linked to human activity. Everyone is now confronted with it. This climate emergency deeply modifies behaviors, risking to divide Western societies.

In the past 120,000 years, no month on Earth has been as hot as July 2023. Antonio Gutterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations known for his strong statements on climate change, stated that the era of global warming was over but that the era of global boiling had arrived.

The month of July is historically the hottest of the year. The graph shows the average temperature for each month of July since 1979.

The multiplication of climate events creates a rupture in 2023.

Heatwaves are more numerous and intense. Heat records have been shattered in China, Italy, Iran, the United States, and even in northern Africa. Winter in the Andes has turned into scorching summer. In Canada, the multiplication of fires has caused a dramatic increase in CO2 emissions and heavily veiled the sunlight.

These record temperatures have been accompanied by unprecedented rains and floods in Beijing and Delhi.

The water cycle is also greatly disrupted by this climate change because the oceans are the largest heat absorbers. And they have never been so warm.
This heat generates water vapor on a large scale, accentuating the greenhouse effect. The dynamics thus created self-sustain, causing extreme weather conditions.
This is why this period is a phase of rupture. The graph on ocean temperatures reflects this well, below.

We can make two remarks.
The first remark is that the observed temperature is well above its historical average, even exceeding its average plus 2 standard deviations (the probability of reaching this range is only 2.5%). This phenomenon has been ongoing since the beginning of 2022. To measure the change, the water temperature in Florida, USA, is around 38°C. This phenomenon will strongly disrupt local biodiversity in the long term. It is therefore a shift in reference and no longer an exception.

The other remark is that the peak temperature of the oceans generally occurs in March, not July. The dynamics of the oceans are affected by climate change and this will undoubtedly have effects on climate evolution. The oceans absorb 89% of the heat absorbed by the Earth. The increase in water temperatures will intensify and disrupt all ecosystems. The graph in the appendix shows how heat absorption is distributed among oceans, land, and poles.

What impact do these heatwaves have?
Recent researches show two points:
Firstly, without human activity, these heatwaves would not exist. Secondly, in July 2023, at least one day was impacted by a heatwave resulting from global warming for 6.5 billion individuals.

1- Detailed analyses from World Weather Attribution (WWA) regarding contributions related to human activity compare climate functioning conditions with and without human activity. According to their work, these known heatwaves cannot be explained without considering human activity's contribution.
Without human activity since the industrial revolution, such episodes could not occur on such a scale in Europe or the United States. In China, occurrences of such waves are 50 times higher.
As a result, under current conditions, such situations could occur every 15 years in the US., every ten years in Europe and every five years in China.
The world has definitively changed.

2- In July 2023 alone, at least one day exposed to a heatwave resulting from global warming affected 6.5 billion individuals, or 81% of the world's population. This is the major finding of a recent study by Climate Central.
The Climate Shift Index measures the intensity of this heatwave compared to normal conditions (with 5 being the highest intensity). On average, approximately one-quarter of the global population was exposed to a high-intensity (5) heatwave throughout July.
Every day in July, at least 2 billion people faced a level 3 risk (a situation where human-induced climate change has made high temperatures at least three times more likely). The peak occurred on July 10th when 3.5 billion people were affected by a level 3 risk.

Consequences of these ruptures
In this new environment, there is an awareness that has two types of opposite consequences.

The first reflection concerns the pace at which the citizens of the world must cope. Can we still be in adaptation and mitigation to gradually converge towards the right trajectory? Or should we be more brutal? We can observe this divergence between those who, rather conservative, think that we will eventually reach the right profile, often because technology is perceived as the solution and because the evolution of the world is linear. And those who are more extreme because they consider any delay to be detrimental and therefore it is necessary to make society aware of the urgency to act. The world is then not linear but may be exponential in its degradation. Commenting on heatwaves, Antonio Guterres recently stated at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), "All this is perfectly consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is how quickly change is happening." The world may not be linear and waiting for technological benefits could be futile without a change in behavior.

The second reflection is that there is also a marked political rupture. This was seen directly in Germany where the question of banning gas water heaters caused a division in society. The ruling coalition was weakened, especially on the side of the Greens. The radical opposition party Afd greatly benefited from this situation with now very high poll numbers. Measures aimed at countering climate change by changing living conditions are criticized for doing nothing and returning to the past. In Spain, Vox benefits from a very favorable situation after the general elections in July. In Italy and the United Kingdom, incumbent governments are taking measures to bypass constraints related to global warming. In the United States, Republicans have indicated their intention to reverse all climate-related measures implemented by Biden's administration if they win in 2024 presidential elections.

Measures against climate change are already a dividing line within Western societies. There is no doubt that the increasing heatwaves will exacerbate these divisions both within civil society and during elections. It is up to each individual to be aware of this, as it will have significant implications for the evolution of societies and economies.

It is not enough to simply build renewable energies, even though it is essential for decarbonizing the economy, as some soothing statements suggest. Behavior must change because the only solution lies in a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels. In 2022, over 80% of primary energy consumption still came from fossil fuels. This is not compatible with carbon neutrality since this figure needs to be more than halved by 2050 to achieve it.

Investing in renewable energies must be at the heart of any policy to combat global warming, but it is a necessary condition but not sufficient to ensure the well-being of our future generations.

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Philippe Waechter is chief economist at Ostrum AM in Paris, France

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Annex

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