Cyclone ‘Michaung’: Grim reminder for the world to limit global warming, cut emissions
Cyclone ‘Michaung’, which has drowned Chennai, is a stark warning of climate change. With rising CO2 emissions, urgent cuts are needed to tackle the escalating climate crisis.
The severe cyclonic storm ‘Michaung’, which caused devastation in India’s metropolitan city of Chennai and the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh, where it made landfall on Tuesday, is a grim reminder for the world to limit global warming and cut emissions rapidly.
The volume of rain the storm dumped over Chennai is unprecedented. The city received close to 45 cm in two days, overpowering the flood mitigation system put in place by the state authorities.
Michaung is the sixth storm of the year in the Indian seas. While the formation of a tropical storm in the Bay of Bengal during December is very typical, the intensity of rains associated with the cyclone Micchuang is not normal.
Climate experts say the frequency and intensity of cyclones have increased manifolds, courtesy of global warming. 93% of the heat is being observed by the oceans, and warm waters act as an energy source for cyclones. Scientists note that the intensity of the cyclone depends not only on sea surface temperature (SST) but, more importantly, on the volume of warm water in the ocean.
As the COP28 in Dubai is battling hard to reach some consensus on an emission cut to limit global warming to 1.5°C, a slew of reports were released on Tuesday by various organisations that suggest global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have risen this year and are reaching record levels, according to new research from the Global Carbon Project science team.
Surging emissions in India and China
The annual Global Carbon Budget projects fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 36.8 billion metric tonnes in 2023, up 1.1% from 2022. The report projects that total global CO2 emissions will be 40.9 billion metric tonnes in 2023.
India tops the countries where emissions are on the rise by 8.2% and China by 4%; however, their historic emissions would still be far less than those of the US or Europe. Scientists say if countries don’t take efforts to make course corrections now, climate extremes like Michaung will be on the rise.
“The impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow,” said Prof. Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, who led the study.
“It now looks inevitable that we will overshoot the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree to rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2°C target alive,” Friedlingstein added.
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