THE year 2017 featured the world's worst wildfire damage on record. Last year came close to beating it. The thousands of fires burning around the world from Canada to Spain as this Leader goes to press seem to suggest that this year may have a burning desire to beat 2017's record.
The question is: are the nations of the world doing enough to stop burning the planet down? The answer is no, according to a report released in March by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
As if to remind the leaders of nations that they are not doing enough, the Earth warmed 1.1°C since the industrial age in the month the IPCC issued its latest report. A couple of months later, the Financial Times reported that a few days in June and July breached 1.5°C, the limit set by the Paris Agreement.
What can nations, especially industrialised ones, do? IPCC has this advice: slash emissions by half in seven years and by 2050 go net zero, an idea that appears to mean different things to different countries.
Will this happen? Unlikely, if we use industrial nations' present plans for fossil fuels as a sign of things to come. Take China and the United States, two nations that are leading the emissions' list.
Instead of cooperating to decelerate climate change, they are competing to warm the Earth. According to Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, China last year approved two coal plants per week, the highest level since 2015.
Rival US, home to arguably the largest population of climate change doubters, is no better. President Joe Biden is maxing out fossil fuel in Alaska or wherever else it is to be found.
The United Kingdom's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed in July to "max out" fossil fuel reserves, more than 100 new North Sea licences in the calculation of The Guardian, a British daily. Such "who-burns-the-planet-best" competition is a sign of disaster to come. To blame only the three nations and not others who are on the fossil fuel max-out journey would be unfair.
There are clean energy alternatives to fossil fuel, but not all the 198 nations in the world have the means to develop them, even though they have become cheaper over the years.
Climate financing shouldn't just mean money to mitigate extreme weather events as it is presently interpreted to be, but it also must mean funds to help countries develop clean energy.
Having enjoyed more than 200 years of industrialisation, developed countries have the moral responsibility to provide such funds to countries which are struggling to balance their economic needs with that of their climate change goals.
Ironically, China offers an example of how a country can within a decade become a renewable energy superpower. According to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, China had by 2014 installed 378 gigawatts of renewable capacity to tap water, wind and sun to generate energy, dwarfing every industrial country in clean energy.
As China has demonstrated, it is possible for a country to be a clean energy superpower within a decade, though it remains a puzzle why it is still pursuing a fossil fuel future. The choice is ours: clean energy by 2050 or a burnt Earth.