- by Graham Holton
- The Guardian
- Issue #2108
Flooded Cartagena, Colombia. Photo: ChrisGoldNY – flickr.com (CC BY-NC 2.0)
In 2023 climatic changes in Latin America and the Caribbean affected basic infrastructure, clean water supply, electricity generation, and food production. This places livelihoods and basic health services at risk, with the losses of 2 per cent of annual GDP amounting to billions of dollars. Between 1998 and 2020 climate-related events in the region claimed more than 312,000 lives, and affected more than 277 million people. The region’s climate crises have severely damaged the regions’ health and food security, with 13.8 million people suffering acute food crises.
The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, confirms that last year was the hottest year on record, with a mean temperature 1.39°C above the 1961–1990 baseline.
Drought has become increasingly widespread in the northern half of South America and long-term drought continues in subtropical South America. In Panama, the Canal’s low water levels restricted shipping traffic. Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina recorded their highest September temperatures on record. Since 1991 Mexico has experienced the fastest rate of warming in the region, of 0.3°C per decade. This year temperatures were over 45°C.
South America suffered long, intense heat waves that, combined with soil drying, sparked unprecedented wildfires. Chile experienced its worst ever brushfires. There was an almost total loss of snow cover in the glaciers of the central Andes, which accelerated glacial melting. In Argentina the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) says the reference glacier, Echaurren Norte, has lost 31 metres of water equivalent since 1975.
Around the western Atlantic Ocean, sea levels rose at a higher rate than the global average, threatening coastal areas and small island states. WMO Secretary-General, Celeste Saulo, said: “El Niño conditions during the second half of 2023 contributed to a record warm year and exacerbated many extreme events.” Human-induced climate change has caused rising temperatures and more frequent and extreme weather hazards. The impact of heatwaves, air pollution, food insecurity, and mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, have worsened. El Niño reduced fishing catches in countries like Peru and Ecuador.
According to the Emergency Events Database of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), last year there were 67 hydrological and climate-related hazards in the region. Of these, 77 per cent were storm and flood-related events. The economic damage is estimated at over US$21 billion (AU$31bn).
Latin America and the Caribbean only generate 10 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but the region suffers the worst effects of global warming. As Latin America’s climate changes it is facing temperature rises, drought and heavy rains. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, extreme climate and hydro-meteorological events resulted in the displacement of people, numerous fatalities and significant economic losses.
The rising sea levels of the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans are impacting coastal environments. This has disrupted food and water supplies for towns and cities, contaminated freshwater aquifers, eroded shorelines, inundated low-lying areas, and increased the risks of storm surges. Infrastructure systems are collapsing. These changes have detrimentally impacted health and welfare services.
The OECD and the World Bank report, Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2023, warns that health systems are being challenged by the present climatic changes. The need to develop health plans and strategies has not kept pace with these changes: “there is less evidence on concrete and context-specific policies and plans that integrate adaptation actions to strengthen health systems.”
According to WMO projections, by 2027 world temperatures will exceed 1.5°C above the 1850 baseline. Some scientific reports show that the world is already at this figure. We have reached a major turning point in the fight against climate change, and developed countries have not implemented sufficient production systems that are carbon neutral. The Paris Accord Agreement is for countries to be at 80 per cent NetZero by 2035. Australia lags well behind this target.
