THIS year is all set to become the hottest one ever since recorded climate history.
Climate experts are telling the media that there is 75 to 95 per cent chance of 2024 being one.
No surprises here, especially when you get to hear what American presidential candidate Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, said in a Monday dialogue on X.
Hyped as an interview, it was anything but. Both shredded the Paris Agreement with their assertion that there was no urgent need to cut carbon emissions and that the world had plenty of time to move away from fossil fuels.
Plenty of time in Trump's view? Hundreds of years, with a "who knows" attached. Nonsense on stilts is the only way to describe such a view.
There was a conspicuous absence of science in their conversation on climate change.
One assertion of Trump, which was okayed by Musk, was pure drivel from two years ago: rising sea levels — both missed the paradox — creates more beaches for oceanfront homes when the United States itself provides evidence of countless beachfront bungalows being eroded into disuse by rising tides. Shorelines are being lost, not gained.
Climate scientists tell us sea levels rise for two reasons. One is the expansion of the ocean as its waters are warmed by rises in global temperatures. The other is increased melting of glaciers and ice sheets.
Both are caused by carbon emissions, the primary culprit being fossil fuels. The World Economic Forum's "Global Risks Report 2024" identifies sea-level rise from melting ice as a key threat in the coming decade.
The global sea level has already risen by 10cm since 1993 and by 21cm since records began in 1880, the report says, quoting Nasa figures. One to two metres rise in sea levels is not too distant an event.
Here is why. The Greenland ice cap is losing around 270 billion tonnes of ice per year while Antarctica is shedding 150 billion tonnes of ice over the same period.
One study published on the Nature Communications portal even went as far as predicting a complete collapse of the Greenland ice cap by next year.
Rising sea levels is not only a threat to the US, where by 2050 it is predicted to reach 30cm, but also the Pacific island nations and countries with vast coastlines, such as China, Bangladesh, India, the Netherlands and some such places.
Malaysia isn't free from such threats. With 13 per cent of its land area being within 5km of the coast, Malaysia is only that distance away from devastation. Batu Pahat, Port Klang, Kuala Terengganu, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching are on the danger list.
A Trumpian and Muskian climate point of view among leaders of nations points to one conclusion: the battle to keep global warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial average is over.
We are now into the adaptation phase of the climate crisis. Here, too, it is a slow saunter to setback.
According to a study by the United Nations Environment Programme, developing nations are facing a funding gap of US$194 billion to US$366 billion per year. Underfunded, they are unprepared for a 3ºC-Earth that they had little to do with.
So what else is new?