If you are lucky, your day has been going well with the online deliveries on time and in a spacious house. The money you’ve earned to spend on this may not have come by chance, but even if you are spending money, there is no guarantee you get the luxury you hope for. If there is rain, the online deliveries don’t happen on time and there is a slight chance that your spacious house may get drowned under a flood too. But, to remind you, you’ll not be the only one who has money to afford luxury but can’t enjoy it.

Is it really so?

Is the whole world facing similar issues? 
Well, yes. Everyone is facing the wrath of the climate one way or the other

That’s bad news. But it is the type of news that is going to stay with us for a few decades. Why so?

Let’s take Europe for example. It crossed 40C in the UK while we were all watching and cheering for our country in the Commonwealth Games a few weeks ago. In fact, it was for the first time the temperatures in London crossed 40C.

Isn’t something common in India, to face such heatwaves and stay strong & alive? But that isn’t easy. Many homes in Europe don’t have a fan to start with, let alone an air-conditioner. They usually prefer heat pumps which make their homes warm during winter. One who can afford will start buying ACs now. But there is an issue with the energy supply due to the Russia-Ukraine war, which we covered here. With the rising temperatures, even Champagne is tough to produce now.

But in India, most of us can go through such heat, albeit with some difficulty, isn’t it? To be frank, that’s not the case. Only 24% of the households in India either have an AC or a cooler, as per NFHS. That does mean a lot of people suffer in hot conditions once temperatures cross 35C. And many people live under asbestos roofs, alleviating the matter a lot more.

And not just that, even if you’ve got a cooler or AC, you got to have an electricity supply. India faced major electricity crunch issues this summer, with some places having more than 12hrs a day of power cuts to manage unprecedented power demand.

Let's say you got an abundant power supply. But that still means your AC can’t operate efficiently if the outside temperature clocks above 35C. Even the buildings, rails and most other infra frail if the temperatures repeatedly cross 40C.

So coming back to the original issue, why is the world facing a dramatic rise in temperatures?

The simple answer is the greenhouse effect, which is nothing but a set of gases that when emitted trap heat on the earth. You may not be running a coal plant, but you still might be contributing to such emissions.

Here’s a tweet which explains a bit more-

Ok. Fine.

Is this not a one-time event?

Not really.

The graph above explains this. These are the average temperatures on the earth recorded over the last few decades. Though there is a variance because of seasons, you can see that the overall average temperature is rising (highlighted in red). What used to be called a heatwave earlier is now normal for us.

So, that means….

Yep, that’s mostly true unless we change!

Now, we are done with the summers and heat. But why will climate change cause floods in my spacious house or damage my experience of having online deliveries on time?

This is covered in Part 2.