Climate Change Vulnerability Around the World, Part 6 of a Multi-part Series

“In just 24 hours, parts of Kathmandu saw about 240 ml of rain. It’s the most the city has received in two decades.” The disaster has resulted in 250 fatalities, 178 injuries, and 81,000 people affected.

According to the Daily Mortality Monitoring System, Spain experienced one of its deadliest summers in recent history, with extreme heat waves claiming the lives of 544 individuals in the first week of August 2024 alone. Meanwhile, certain parts of Valencia experienced a year’s rainfall within eight hours. “There is no doubt that these intense rainfall events were exacerbated by climate change,” says Dr. Friederike Otto, leader of world weather attribution at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, and professor at the University of Oxford.

In 2024, Japan faced increasingly severe weather events. Hachioji in Japan was hit by a devastating storm that brought unprecedented levels of hail. Just a few days later, record rainfall led to devastating floods and landslides in Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, resulting in at least six fatalities.

Millions of people across southern Africa are facing the worst food crisis in decades. There are unprecedented drought conditions in a record five countries: Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Scientists have found evidence that Earth is heating up rapidly in every corner of the world, including Antarctica. Similar greening trends have been observed in the Arctic, and in 2021, rain - not snow - fell on the summit of Greenland’s massive ice cap for the first time on record. Our planet and all its inhabitants are rapidly being affected by global warming.