Not only coronavirus: in 2020 cruel natural disasters await the world

The pandemic has not come alone. Following coronavirus, 2020 promises a warming planet with fires, a flood, a crop failure and a biblical invasion of locusts, writes Air force. Natural disasters threaten hunger for poor countries and serious problems in Europe and the USA, meteorologists and international organizations warn.

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The world's oceans are warmer than ever, and drought is gaining momentum in Europe and America. Poor countries are facing the biggest humanitarian crisis of the century, as defined by the UN. And the rich face floods, crop failures and a major hurricane season.

In any other situation, the world would not be without difficulty, but would cope with a climate accident. However, now all resources are thrown into the fight against COVID-19.

Doctors and rescuers do not have free hands, and there is no extra money in their budgets. Farmers, businesses and transport are plunged into an artificial quarantine coma. And if during the coronavirus pandemic there is suddenly a devastating tornado or hailstorm during the harvest days, the situation risks getting out of control.

One cannot count on the help of neighbors or international organizations: medical force majeure has affected all countries. The virus will spare no one, IMF chief economist Gita Gopinat recently warned.

This time, every man for himself. And the problem is not limited to money.

Quarantine did not cancel the warming

Even if a country affected by floods, droughts or hurricanes has the money to deal with the consequences of the disaster and recover, it’s now more difficult to buy and bring what is needed for this than ever. World trade and transport are constrained by the coronavirus. Container ships and dry cargo vessels languish in the roads, planes do not fly.

Frightened by the epidemic, the authorities are introducing bans on the export of medicines and food. Even the richest, most generous and open countries close their borders and do not give money to the common cause: the United States, for example, has cut off funding for the most relevant international body today - the World Health Organization.

The coronavirus has changed life on the planet, but has not canceled what was changing it until recently - global warming, which scientists blame for the increasing frequency of natural disasters.

According to the world's largest climate database, the American National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), in March 2020, the planet warmed up record-high: only once in all the observations since 1880 did the temperature deviate more from the average.

And this despite the worldwide quarantine, because of which the transport and industry got up.

“Air pollution has decreased due to reduced economic activity, but carbon dioxide does not disappear overnight,” says Professor Daniela Schmidt from the University of Bristol. “The effects of warming, like rising sea levels, will be felt for centuries. The pandemic has only limited our ability to mitigate climate change.”

And the changes are obvious.

The previous March record was recorded in 2016 against the background of El Niño, a phenomenon of rising water temperatures in the Pacific tropics, fraught with extreme heat in summer and frost in winter.

This time, even without El Niño, the seas are warmed to a record level - the world's oceans in March were 0,8 degrees warmer than the average for this month.

And the warmer the ocean, the more powerful the hurricanes that form in it. Of the major economies, they inflict the greatest damage on the United States, the richest country in the world, which has suffered the most from the coronavirus. The six-month hurricane season there begins in June.

In addition, over the overheated seas it pours more actively than over cool land, which deprives the continents of rain and causes drought. Rising temperatures in the western Indian Ocean are fraught with dry summers and wildfires in Australia, and warming waters in the North Atlantic threaten to dry and burn the forests of the Amazon.

On the subject: Waste food: why farmers all over the world throw tons of crops

Heat in Europe

Global warming is dangerous not so much because of the warming itself, but because it causes disruptions in the usual program of weather phenomena, scientists warn. The heat suddenly becomes more unbearable, the cold becomes more severe, the wind turns into a hurricane, and the rain turns into a flood.

Last year is a prime example of this.

According to the latest data from the European center Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the year 2019 in Europe was the hottest in the history of observations. But this does not mean that the Europeans handed over the mac to the scrap and bought up sunscreen. Although February, June and July were marked by unprecedented heat, November brought record rainfall and widespread floods.

And this picture is not new. In general, in Europe, in less than two decades of the current century, 11 out of 12 record-breaking hot summers fell.

This year is no exception.

In the very center of Europe, in the area of ​​Geneva and Grenoble, there was no rain for more than 40 days - the last time this happened at the end of the XNUMXth century. It was only this week that the heavens finally opened up.

“Warming in Europe is well ahead of the global trend,” says Professor Rowan Sutton from the UK's National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Data from the last 40 years clearly indicate this.”

The level of reservoirs in Ukraine and Romania fell to a critical level. Half of France’s agricultural land has dried to such an extent that farmers are sounding the alarm.

Germany is also dry, but the authorities are in no hurry to panic, although they are alarmed by the situation, because the past two years have been arid, the Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner said.

“Many people, of course, are happy about the good weather, but farmers are very worried. They remember well the drought of 2018 and 2019, which deprived them of crops and income,” she said, and recalled another danger - the risk of forest fires.

The leading wheat producers, Russia and Kazakhstan, having seen how their largest competitors in Europe suffer, have limited grain exports. They fear that increased demand in rich countries will lead to increased exports and a deficit in the domestic market.

At the same time, there are benefits to dry, warm weather: With no clouds in the skies over much of Europe for weeks, renewable energy is meeting more of the continent's electricity needs. In Germany, solar farms provide up to 40% of all energy on some days, and prices are increasingly negative during the day—consumers are effectively paying for the light to load the grid.

In the first three months of this year, almost 800 times the price of 15-minute contracts for the supply of electricity fell below zero. This is 80% more likely than a year ago, Bloomberg reports data from the European exchange Epex Spot.

Not everything is so bad if not for the virus

Drought hit not only Europe. Argentinean pampas and American prairies are also dehydrated.

In the United States, on a local five-point scale, drought of the second severe degree is already observed in Texas, California and Oregon, and “very dry” (third degree) in a dozen states, mainly in the south, near the Mexican border, in the center and in the northwest: from Alabama to Washington.

But it is too early to talk about damage to the crop. The next two to three months will be decisive for the ripening of grain crops - the basis of nutrition for the majority of the planet's inhabitants and livestock. And the general condition of crops in the world does not look threatening.

In addition, thanks to last year's stellar harvest, the world's grain bins are overflowing with grain - stocks are at record levels.

At this point we should have calmed down and parted ways, but an uninvited guest intervened - the coronavirus. Because of the pandemic, an unpleasant but bearable situation in everyday life has taken on new colors.

The pandemic ruined the logistics of the global food market: there are not enough healthy workers in warehouses and ports, trucks are idle without drivers. No aircraft or container can be found. Transportation sharply decreased.

Meanwhile, the harvest rots in the fields, since agriculture is one of the main employers of migrant workers. However, due to quarantine, coffee pickers cannot reach plantations in Latin America, Moroccans are not allowed into Spain to pick strawberries, and Romanians and Bulgarians are in no hurry to go to Britain and Germany.

It all smells like a new food crisis. But, unlike the previous two 2007-2008 and 2010-2012, this time the problem is not the lack of food. Its just in abundance. Now the problem is how to collect it and take it to the supermarkets.

On the subject: Scientists: because of the pandemic, the number of hungry people in the world may double

Terrible famine and locusts

The threat of a food crisis, coupled with the pandemic of the coronavirus, entails serious costs for rich states and develops a penchant for protectionism. This is an excellent occasion to reduce aid to poor countries, which populists have long taken up their arms: why help distant Africa, they are indignant if in our city of Detroit and Liverpool the homeless are starving and sick at the steps of boutiques.

It was hard to imagine the worst time for such moods.

Even without the lethal virus pandemic, 2020 promised the world the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II, warned world leaders long before COVID-19, Executive Director of the UN World Food Program, David Beasley.

And now, in a “perfect storm,” three dozen poor countries could face widespread famine this year. People will die in tens and hundreds of thousands, and to prevent this, aid not only should not be reduced under any circumstances, but will have to be increased, Beasley says.

According to the latest UN data, almost 1 billion people in the world are chronically undernourished - every eighth inhabitant of the planet. And due to the coronavirus crisis, their number will increase by another 130 million in 2020 alone. Beasley warns: 265 million people will go hungry.

The UN Food Program, which he heads, is the largest humanitarian organization in the world. It feeds almost 100 million people every day. If this aid is suddenly stopped, up to 300 thousand people will die of hunger every day.

Within three months, as many people will die every day as they live in cities the size of Simferopol, Chernihiv or Vladikavkaz.

“We are facing not only a global pandemic, but also a global humanitarian disaster,” Beasley said. “Millions of ordinary citizens in conflict-torn countries are at risk of survival. The specter of hunger is as real and dangerous as ever. In a worst-case scenario, famine threatens three dozen countries.”

Drought, virus and famine at the same time are too much even for a mediocre disaster film. But in 2020, humanity will face this in reality. The invasion of hordes of locusts will add tragedy to all this.

Gluttonous creatures hatched in biblical proportions in Yemen thanks to the warm and rainy winter. By the time the world became preoccupied with coronavirus, locusts were devouring greens in 23 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The World Bank called the invasion the worst in a generation - and this was even before its second, even larger wave had fully emerged. Locust clouds are brewing in Kenya, Ethiopia and Iran.

She will have something to profit from - crops are just sprouting in Africa. This year's harvest is in doubt.

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