Climate change is one the most defying challenges of our time and implies an additional pressure for our society and environment. From changing meteorological conditions that threat food production to the sea level rising, increasing the risk of catastrophic floods. The effects of climate change have a global reach and an unprecedented scale.

 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with the aim of providing an objective source of scientific information. In 2013, it was concluded that climate change is a reality and it is mainly caused by human activity.

 

Regarding climate, 2017 was a year full of natural disasters and extreme weather phenomena. Last summer was one of the hottest so far and set the record of the highest temperature ever recorded: 47,3°C on the 19th July in Montoro, Córdoba - the previous record was set in 1994 in Murcia, with 47,2°C. This was not the only suffocating day and Spain wasn’t either the only country beating its records. Australia, especially Sydney and Brisbane reached unusually high temperatures and also California, in the US. On the other hand, at the end of December the US and Canada froze at lower temperatures than ever before. A fierce cold wave from the Arctic make the temperatures drop to -42°C in Minnesota.

 

Nowadays, almost all experts agree that all these phenomena, including three Category 6 hurricanes, are caused by climate change.

 

We might think that all these changes will not affect us: it won’t be so bad. However, the reality is that extreme weather is the consequence of what we have done to the planet. Cape Town, South Africa, is the second largest city of the country with four million people living in it. In February, panic was triggered when it was announced that this city is about to become the first one in the world without running water for daily supply. The countdown for this city began some months ago. Four million people will be provided with water from 180 tanker trucks with a limit of 25 litres a day. This is a minimal quantity, considering that a shower of 2 minutes’ duration consumes 20 litres and 5 additional litres are needed for feeding.