The link between our fossil fuel addiction and worsening extreme heat is undeniable

As news breaks that North America’s heatwave was made 150 times more likely by the climate crisis, Daisy Dunne considers the mounting evidence linking worsening extreme weather to fossil fuels

People gather in a ‘cooling centre’ during Portland’s record heatwave (Reuters)

Every heatwave occurring today is made more likely and more intense by human-induced climate change.”

Those are the definitive words of Dr Friederike Otto, associate director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford and one of the world’s foremost extreme weather experts.

Dr Otto is part of a team that today revealed the climate crisis made North America’s recent heatwave 150 times more likely. Without human-caused warming, the record-breaking heat – which has killed hundreds of people across Canada and the western US – would have been “virtually impossible”, the scientists say.

The research is the latest in a string of scientific analyses tying recent extreme heat to the climate crisis.

Previous studies have found that the climate crisis made last summer’s Arctic heatwave 600 times more likely and Europe’s record 2019 heatwave 100 times more likely. An analysis released in the wake of Australia’s record 2019-2020 bushfires found that the climate crisis made temperatures at the time of the disaster around 2C hotter than in the early 20th century.

Such research shows that we are bound for more extraordinary heat as the climate crisis worsens.

North America’s recent heatwave is currently expected to occur roughly once every 1,000 years. But, if global temperatures reach 2C above pre-industrial levels – the upper limit set by countries under the Paris Agreement – such extreme temperatures could occur every five to 10 years, according to today’s findings.

The UK – with its poorly ventilated housing and cramped cities – won’t escape the uptick. A study by the Met Office found that the UK’s extreme 2018 heatwave was made 30 times more likely by the climate crisis. It added that, by the middle of the century, such temperatures could become “normal”.

Though further increases in extreme heat are inevitable, the scale of the dangers we face will depend greatly on actions taken by world leaders. In November, they are due to gather in Glasgow for Cop26 – a set of talks that will be crucial to getting the world on track if it is to meet its aspiration of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

Temperatures have already risen by 1.2C and research shows that recent pledges and promises put forward by countries are still not enough to meet the 1.5C target.

The fossil fuel industry is also facing intense scrutiny for its role in driving the climate crisis and its escalating impacts. The last major assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s authority on climate science, found that fossil fuel burning accounted for around 78 per cent of the increase in greenhouse gases recorded between 1970 and 2010.

As heat swept the US last week, an oil executive from ExxonMobil, the nation’s largest oil and gas firm, was for the first time caught on tape admitting that his company purposefully fought against climate science in an attempt to protect its profits.

It is rumoured that the IPCC’s next major assessment report – due later this year – will set new ground by taking aim at entities, including ExxonMobil, that have sought to delay action on the climate crisis through lobbying and disinformation campaigns.

“Climate change is no longer a future issue,” Professor Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, told The Independent on Wednesday. “Its impacts are here and now, and its costs are being measured not just in dollars, but in human lives.”