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Climate Crisis Made Deadly Heatwave in US and Mexico 35 Times More Likely
"As long as humans fill the atmosphere with fossil-fuel emissions, the heat will only get worse—vulnerable people will continue to die," an author of the analysis said.
Jun 20, 2024
Scientists on Thursday released an analysis showing the likely role of climate change in creating the deadly heatwave that hit areas including Mexico and the U.S. south in late May and early June.
Record-breaking heat caused by a heat dome, which engulfed areas from Nevada to Honduras, was hotter and more likely to occur due to the climate crisis, with five-day maximum daytime temperatures 35 times more likely than in pre-industrial times and nighttime temperatures 200 times more likely, scientists at World Weather Attribution (WWA) found.
At least 35 died of related illness in just one week in early June in Mexico, and the total death toll may have been much higher. The scientists emphasized that the extreme weather causing the death and suffering was brought about by fossil fuel emissions.
"Unsurprisingly, heatwaves are getting deadlier," Friederike Otto, a co-author of the study and climate scientist at Imperial College London, toldThe Guardian. "We've known about the dangers of climate change at least since the 1970s. But thanks to spineless politicians, who give in to fossil-fuel lobbying again and again, the world continues to burn huge amounts of oil, gas, and coal."
Deadly heat that would have been very rare without climate change & even relatively rare just 20 years ago, now common event due to continued increase in emissions from burning fossil fuels. We now this is happening, but we are not prepared. https://t.co/M93eB8TiIu pic.twitter.com/4U8lIXB8xN
— Dr Friederike Otto (@FrediOtto) June 20, 2024
The analysis was published on the same day that the Energy Institute reported that fossil fuel consumption climbed to a record high in 2023, with coal, oil, and gas still making up more than 80% of the global energy mix, though the figure fell below 70% in Europe for the first time.
May was the 12th consecutive month that was the hottest on record globally, compared to the same time period in previous years. And June has proved to be dangerously hot in many areas, with hundreds dying in the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia as temperatures rose above 124°F and Balkan countries, as well as much of the U.S., currently under extreme heat advisories.
The WWA scientists sought to connect the May-June heatwave to these larger trends, and repeatedly explained the cause of the problem.
"As long as humans fill the atmosphere with fossil-fuel emissions, the heat will only get worse—vulnerable people will continue to die and the cost of living will continue to increase," Izidine Pinto, a co-author and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, told The Guardian.
The heatwave coincided with a drought in Mexico, exacerbating already dire conditions as water supplies dwindled and electricity systems faltered. It also followed, and may have helped prolong, a terrible outbreak of dengue in Latin America and the Caribbean that caused over 1,800 deaths. "Every heatwave is a push that builds up dengue transmission," an expert toldScientific American in April. Dengue cases have begun to decline but still persist, according toDialogue Earth.
The May-June heatwave was notable for especially high nighttime temperatures, which prevent the body from resting and recovering from the daytime heat—a process that's only possible below about 80°F. Certain places in the study area saw nighttime temperatures "with return periods of up to 1000 years."
The climate crisis is changing the likelihood of such weather. "The extreme heat slamming the eastern U.S. this week may be a sign of things to come," The Hill's Zach Budryk wrote Thursday.
That was similar to the message of the WWA scientists.
"These trends will continue with future warming and events like the one observed in 2024 will be very common in a 2°C world," according to their analysis, which refers to a time when the planet has heated 2°C above preindustrial levels; it's already heated up by more than 1°C.
In the analysis, the authors called for warning systems, action plans, laws to protect outdoor workers, and other resilience measures such as better grid systems and more green spaces.
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Groups Warn Gang Crackdown in El Salvador Has Led to Human Rights Crisis
"Reducing gang violence by replacing it with state violence cannot be a success," said one Amnesty International official.
Mar 27, 2024
Two years after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele declared a "state of exception" that was originally adopted for a 30-day period in response for a spate of apparent gang killings, the government is boasting that its policies have driven down the homicide rate by 70%—but international rights defenders on Wednesday warned the crackdown has plunged the country into a human rights crisis.
Amnesty International said that according to local victims' movements and human rights groups, El Salvador's former murder rate has been replaced by 327 cases of forced disappearances since March 2022, as well as 78,000 arbitrary detentions as police have raided neighborhoods, particularly in low-income areas.
"A total of approximately 102,000 people [are] now deprived of their freedom in the country—a situation of prison overcrowding of approximately 148% percent and at least 235 deaths in state custody," said Amnesty.
Bukele adopted the state of emergency after El Salvador reported its deadliest peak in apparent gang violence in recent history, with gangs blamed for 92 people's deaths over three days in March 2022.
Under the emergency order, authorities have suspended the right to privacy in communications, to be informed of the reason for one's arrest, and to be taken before a judge within 72 hours of an arrest. A report by Human Rights Watch in December 2022 also warned of "torture, or other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment against people accused of crimes." Officers told people during arrests only that they were following "orders from the president," and in some cases, told people they were being taken to a police station for "questioning" when they were actually under arrest.
"The insistence of Nayib Bukele's government on maintaining the state of emergency, the adoption of disproportionate measures, and the denial, minimization, and concealment of reported serious human rights violations reflect the government's unwillingness to fulfill its duty to respect and promote human rights in the country," Ana Piquer, Amnesty International's Americas director, said Wednesday. "It also demonstrates its inability to design comprehensive long-term measures to address the root causes of violence and criminality without forcing the population to choose between security and freedom."
Amnesty's statement came a day after Justice and Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro said Bukele's government plans to continue its strategy to "eradicate this endemic evil."
"This war against these terrorists will continue," said Villatoro in a televised address.
Despite outcry from domestic and international human rights groups, Bukele won his reelection campaign in a landslide last month. El Faro reported that Bukele's government had violated some election rules including airing ads within three days of the election and campaigning on Election Day. Some poll workers also wore clothes identifying them as supporters of Bukele's Nueva Ideas party, and police allegedly blocked journalists from working near polling locations, prompting accusations of intimidation and harassment by the Association of Journalists of El Salvador.
The Due Process of Law Foundation released a report Tuesday warning that Bukele's government could be guilty of crimes against humanity as it continues its crackdown.
"Well over 76,000 people, including minors, have been detained under the state of exception, accused of having ties to gangs," wrote the group. "Many or most of these detentions appear to be occurring without any reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person may have committed a crime. Mere physical appearance—including having tattoos—seems to be enough to put people at risk of arrest, with young men from poor districts a particular target. Arrests of this nature are in themselves discriminatory, and may well qualify as arbitrary. According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, under customary
international law, 'The legal basis justifying... detention must be accessible, understandable, nonretroactive, and applied in a consistent and predictable way.'"
Amnesty noted on Wednesday that human rights defenders and dissidents also face "increased risk" under the state of emergency, "as they are criminalized." As Common Dreams reported this week, five water defenders are scheduled to stand trial on April 3 for allegedly killing a military informant, an accusation for which the government has produced no proof.
"In the absence of any kind of evaluation and checks and balances within the country, and with only a timid response from the international community, the false illusion has been created that President Bukele has found the magic formula to solve the very complex problems of violence and criminality in a seemingly simple way. But reducing gang violence by replacing it with state violence cannot be a success," said Piquer. "The authorities in El Salvador must focus the state response on comprehensive policies that respect human rights and seek long-term solutions."
"The international community," she added, "must respond in a robust, articulate and forceful manner, condemning any model of public security that is based on human rights violations."
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Groups Demand Freedom for Water Defenders in El Salvador
"We need the continued support of the international community to ensure that basic human rights, such as the right to due process, are upheld in El Salvador," said one local campaigner.
Feb 16, 2024
In the wake of right-wing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele recent reelection, 245 groups from 31 countries on Friday renewed calls for his government to drop all charges against five Salvadoran water defenders known globally for their anti-mining work.
Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Teodoro Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega—who fought for a 2017 legislative ban on metal mining in El Salvador—were arrested over a year ago. They are accused of murdering an alleged military informant during a civil war more than three decades ago. While they were released to house arrest in September, the "Santa Marta Five" still face charges that critics call politically motivated.
In a joint statement published in English and Spanish, the global coalition pointed to reporting that Bukele's government is "considering overturning the mining ban" due to economic issues in the Central American country as well as his administration's "crusade to criminalize, persecute, and demobilize its political opponents."
"We call on the Salvadoran government to drop all charges against the five prominent water defenders and to protect, not undermine, the human rights of all Salvadorans."
"Rather than investigate or prosecute those responsible for the dozens of cases of human rights violations and crimes against humanity that members of the Salvadoran military committed against the Santa Marta community (including the murders of the Lempa River massacre in 1980, where 30 people were assassinated and 189 were disappeared), the government is now re-victimizing the community by targeting their leaders, who have been outspoken against the policies of the current government," the groups said.
"Over this past year, the Salvadoran government has produced no evidence of guilt for the five, and legal experts argue that the five are covered under a 1992 amnesty that was part of a National Reconciliation Law that passed that year," the coalition continued. "At the same time, hundreds of civil society organizations, elected officials from the U.S., Canada, and Spain, and U.N. special rapporteurs have called for their exoneration."
The Santa Marta Five are among over 75,000 people arrested during El Salvador's state of exception, a nationwide crackdown on gangs that began in March 2022. Human rights organizations say many of those imprisoned are innocent and have documented widespread abuse by security forces.
A U.S.-Canadian delegation visited El Salvador in October and last month released a report on their findings—in English and Spanish. In addition to highlighting the "tens of thousands of innocent people" imprisoned under Bukele and "compelling evidence" that he wants to violate the mining ban, the report states that the president "has taken a series of steps to reduce the independence of the judiciary, to violate basic human rights, and to suspend civil liberties and the rule of law."
The report also emphasizes that "representatives of the executive branches of the governments of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the European Union have chosen to ignore these massive violations of human rights as they drop their criticism of Bukele's actions and supply financial aid to his government."
Report co-author John Cavanagh is a senior adviser at the Institute for Policy Studies, which is one of the groups behind the new joint statement and in 2009 honored the National Roundtable on Metals Mining, a coalition the arrested water defenders helped build, with its annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award.
"We were shocked by the level of fear of arbitrary arrest among ordinary people in El Salvador today," Cavanagh said Friday. "We call on the Salvadoran government to drop all charges against the five prominent water defenders and to protect, not undermine, the human rights of all Salvadorans."
Vidalina Morales, president of the Association of Economic and Social Development Santa Marta (ADES), stressed that "at this time, when President Nayib Bukele has consolidated his dictatorial control of all the democratic institutions of the Salvadoran state, we need the continued support of the international community to ensure that basic human rights, such as the right to due process, are upheld in El Salvador."
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