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Will a catastrophic summer in Europe deliver real change on climate policy? Not while states remain captured by fossil fuel interests.
Record high temperatures — including the UK reaching 40 degrees for the first time — fires blazing in Spain, France and Greece, infrastructure failing and thousands of heat-related deaths suggest Europe is having a Black Summer moment. And it’s getting far more exposure in local media than the colossal heatwave that beset India and Pakistan just weeks ago.
The future has arrived, and earlier than expected. We’re used to thinking of global warming as a slow-motion emergency, one for the long term, with policymakers bandying around targets for 2050, not just safely off beyond the next electoral cycle but beyond a timeframe most of us think about our own lives with.
Then a major event arrives to remind us that, sorry for the inconvenience, lazy thinking ain’t gonna work. Like Black Summer here. Then floods. Flood after flood after flood. Now it’s the northern hemisphere’s turn. White people like most of us, making it more photogenic for Australian media.
Read more about the reluctance to tackle climate change.
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