Climate Crisis

“A nation that destroy its soils, destroy itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” _ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Human activities are causing climate change, which is certainly a sad reality. Through our own hands, we are all equally responsible for destroying our motherland, like burning fossil fuels, which is causing a long-term shift in Earth’s average weather patterns. Numerous other acts are leading to a range of influences, including rising sea levels, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, and disturbances to ecosystems and human social order. Scientists predicted that global temperature will increase from human-made greenhouse gases, which will increase and intensify severe weather damage. What? Scientists predicted a long time ago we are seeing its effects already, such as sea level rise, the loss of sea ice, melting glaciers and ice sheets, and more intense heat waves. The possible future effects of worldwide climate change consist of an increase in the wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones, longer periods of drought in some areas, and more frequent wildfires. The more concerning fact is that some changes, such as droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall, are happening quicker than what scientists have assessed previously. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body established to assess the science associated with climate change, today’s generation has never observed changes like this in their global climate before, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss the brief, rapidly closing window to secure a livable future.” _ (INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE)

Scientists show their concern over climate; if it continues to warm, then the intensity of hurricane-associated rainfall rate will increase. We will see in upcoming years that drought and heat waves are expected to become more penetrating and cold waves less penetrating and less frequent. If the current projection holds, the Arctic Ocean will likely become essentially ice-free in late summer due to the sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean being expected to continue decreasing. While scientific models are powerful tools for predicting future climate scenarios, uncertainties remain. Factors such as natural climate variability, solar activity, and oceanic cycles sometimes make long-term predictions challenging. These uncertainties highlight the need for continued research to refine models and improve their accuracy. Climate change threatens biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. Rising temperatures and shifting weather patterns are altering habitats, pushing many species toward extinction. The collapse of ecosystems like coral reefs and rainforests could have far-reaching consequences for food chains and human livelihoods. Despite scientific warnings, achieving global consensus on emission reductions remains difficult. Delays in policy implementation risk locking the planet into higher levels of warming, making adaptation more costly and less effective in the future.

“Climate change does not respect borders; it does not respect who you are—rich or poor, small or big. Therefore, this is what we call global challenges, which require global solidarity.” _ BAN KI-MOON

To prevent our planet from global warming and heal it, we all need to work in solidarity, as Ban Ki-moon said in his quote. We need to switch to renewable energy like solar, wind, and hydropower instead of fossil fuels. It is important to protect existing forests to maintain biodiversity and carbon sinks. Need to restore wetlands and mangroves, as they store large amounts of carbon and protect coastlines. It is better to adopt climate-smart farming practices like crop rotation and organic farming. We need to minimize single-use plastics and promote recycling. Use energy-efficient buildings with proper insulation and green rooftops. Methods such as geoengineering should be used for solar radiation management but with great caution. For a clean fuel alternative, the use of green hydrogen would be a much better option. The international agreements, like the Paris Accord, set global emission targets. To support climate research for better solutions and innovations.

CONCLUSION

The scientific concerns regarding climate change go beyond rising temperatures; they encompass melting ice sheets, biodiversity loss, extreme weather, and uncertainties in predicting future impacts. While progress has been made in understanding the crisis, the growing evidence suggests that immediate, collective, and science-driven action is essential. Climate change is not just an environmental issue—it is a global challenge demanding urgent attention from policymakers, scientists, and societies worldwide. Individual efforts to reduce global warming are that we should conserve energy by switching off lights and electronics when not in use. Also, using energy-efficient appliances, such as LEDs, solar panels, etc. We can use sustainable transport like public transport or cycle, carpool, or walk if distances are not too long. We all need to participate in afforestation or community gardening projects. Plus, eat more plant-based foods and reduce meat and dairy consumption to lower methane emissions. The most important thing that we all need to do is to spread awareness by educating others about climate change and supporting eco-friendly policies.

As global plastic treaty talks end in failure, with no agreement, all is not lost in the global momentum to cut plastic pollution. United States lawmakers recently introduced the Microplastics Safety Act, for example, mandating the Department of Health and Human Services to study microplastics exposure and health impacts. The bill reflects growing concern in Congress about the plastics health crisis and the broad bipartisan support to address it.

However, given that plastic production, use, and hence exposure, continue to increase every year, we should not wait idly for the US report’s findings or more failed global plastic treaty talks. There is enough evidence to take action now. Below, we highlight three areas that can help reduce everyone’s exposure to microplastics: culture, business and policy.

In culture, there are many default behaviours that we can rethink and re-norm. What if we saw more people bringing their own metal or wooden cutlery to the next barbecue, more shoppers bringing home whole fruit instead of plastic-wrapped pre-cut, and more kids and employees bringing their own refillable water bottles and coffee mugs to school and work? The more we see it normalised, the more we’ll do it. That’s how social norming works.

And having Hollywood in on this would certainly help. Two years ago, Citywide, a feature film shot in Philadelphia was Hollywood’s first zero-waste film, which is a great start. More of this is welcome, including walking the talk within movie, television and advertising scenes by swapping in refillable and reusable containers where single-use plastics would otherwise be the default or showcasing repeat outfits on characters to decentre environmentally harmful fast fashion, much of which is made from plastic.

In business, thankfully, some local grocers allow shoppers to go plastic-free. More grocers should make this shift because consumers want it. Providing staples like cereal, oats, nuts and beans in bulk bins and letting shoppers bring their own containers is a good start. Buying in bulk tends to be more affordable but unfortunately, few stores offer that option, especially stores that target shoppers with lower incomes. Even shoppers with higher incomes lack options: Whole Foods, for example, has bulk bins but in most of its locations requires customers to use the provided plastic containers or bags, which defeats the purpose.

More low-hanging fruit for grocers: try using the milk bottle approach. In some grocery stores, milk is still available in glass bottles, which is good, albeit it comes with a steep deposit. Let’s extend that model of returnable containers to other products, and at a more affordable rate. Take yoghurt, for example. Stores could have an option to buy it in returnable glass containers, since the current plastic containers aren’t recyclable. This is not a fantasy but a possibility: a newly opened grocery store in France offers all of their items plastic-free.

For restaurants, more and more businesses across the US are supporting the use of returnable containers and cities like the District of Columbia offer grants to help ditch disposables. This is exactly what we need more of. People want the option to bring their own containers or use a returnable container so that they can have take-out without risking their health and the environment with exposure to plastic. Let’s give the people what they want.

Policy is arguably the hardest of the three paths to tackle since culture and business track more closely and immediately with consumer demand. To be clear, most Americans, in a bipartisan way, are sick of single-use plastics, which is why plastic bag bans are popping up across the US, and state capitals are seeing more legislative proposals to hold producers of plastic responsible for the life cycle of plastic. What makes policy the more difficult space is the petrochemical lobby that often stands in the way, keeping policymakers mum about the human health and environmental impacts while encouraging industry subsidies: the US has spent $9bn in tax subsidies on the construction of new plastics factories over the past 12 years.

Given the health and environmental harms associated with plastics production, the obvious policy fix is to make the producers responsible for the pollution, forcing them to clean up in places locally like Beaver Creek, Pennsylvania, where the local economy suffered after an ethane cracker plant started operating there. And then to clean up globally for the harm done, since governments are left with the tab of $32bn while the public is left with the costs of health impacts from endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in plastic.

The industry, meanwhile, is fighting tooth and nail to keep selling its harmful products, misleading the public into thinking recycling is an effective solution to plastic waste. It’s not, of course, which is why California is suing ExxonMobil for deception about plastics recycling. Meanwhile, the industry continues to interfere with United Nations global plastics treaty negotiations.

It’s time we diverted those billions of dollars that taxpayers spend subsidising deadly plastics production and, instead, develop products, companies and systems that make the low-plastic life the default option for everyone. That’s the healthier future we want to live in.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Schools shut and villages swept away as Pakistan reels from monsoon devastation.

At least 21 people have died in monsoon rain-related incidents in Pakistan, authorities said, pushing the nationwide death toll over the last week above 400 as floods and landslides continue to devastate large parts of the country.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said on Wednesday that 11 people were killed in Gilgit-Baltistan in the north and 10 others died in Karachi, Pakistan’s financial hub, where heavy rain triggered electrocutions and house collapses.

Schools in Karachi, a city of more than 20 million, remained closed as forecasters warned of further downpours until Saturday. Sindh’s chief meteorologist, Amir Hyder Laghari, blamed “weak infrastructure” for the severe flooding in urban areas.

The city’s ageing pipes and drains struggled to handle the deluge, leaving entire neighbourhoods submerged. Residents were seen scooping murky water from their homes as power and phone outages added to the disruption.

Provincial officials reported 40 to 50 houses damaged in two districts. “Another (rain) spell is to start by the end of the month,” NDMA chairman Inam Haider Malik said.

The northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been hardest hit, with more than 350 people killed since last Thursday. Authorities and army units are searching for dozens of missing villagers in areas struck by flash floods and landslides. Excavators have been deployed to clear debris clogging rivers and drainage systems.

“We have established relief camps where we are providing medical assistance. We are also giving dry rations and tents to all the people,” army Colonel Irfan Afridi told the AFP news agency in Buner district, where more than 220 people have died in recent days.

“The children are scared. They say we cannot sleep at night due to fear,” said Anjum Anwar, a medical worker at a relief camp. “The flood … has destroyed our entire settlements.”

The monsoon season, which runs from June to September, often brings destruction to Pakistan’s mountainous north and flood-prone south. Authorities warn the current rains may last until mid-September.

Nearly 750 people have died since this year’s monsoon began, officials said. Pakistan, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, has faced increasingly extreme weather in recent years. In 2022, monsoon floods submerged a third of the country, killing about 1,700 people.

EXPLAINER

With this year’s hurricane season under way, Al Jazeera visualises the differences between various storm systems.

Hurricane Erin became the Atlantic Ocean’s first hurricane of the season – which runs from June 1 to November 30 – rapidly intensifying to Category 5 on Saturday before weakening to Category 2 on Tuesday.

While the storm remained far out at sea, it still generated major waves along the United States East Coast. Officials in North Carolina’s Outer Banks warned of coastal flooding and issued evacuation orders.

On its path were the northern Leeward Islands, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and the Turks and Caicos, with swells reaching the Bahamas, Bermuda, the US East Coast and Atlantic Canada.

The storm’s rapid intensification, reaching Category 5 in a short span, ranks it among the fastest-strengthening hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic. Scientists have linked such rapid intensification to climate change, as global warming increases atmospheric water vapour and ocean temperatures, providing hurricanes with more fuel to strengthen quickly and unleash heavier rainfall.

Storms that ramp up so quickly complicate forecasting and make it harder for government agencies to plan for emergencies.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) publishes an alphabetical list of names for upcoming tropical cyclones. These names are meant to be short, easy to pronounce, appropriate across languages and unique.

Erin was the fifth named storm of the season but became the first hurricane because the previous four storms never reached hurricane strength.

Are hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons the same thing?

When broken down to basics, yes, hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are all essentially the same thing. The only thing that differs is where they originated from. All three are storm systems with winds exceeding 119km/h (74mph).

Hurricanes: Occur in the North Atlantic Ocean and Northeast Pacific, often affecting the United States East Coast, the Gulf, and the Caribbean. The strength of a hurricane is measured on a wind scale from 1 to 5. A Category 1 hurricane will bring with it sustained winds of 119-153km/h (74-95mph), whereas a Category 5 storm can exceed 252km/h (157mph).

Cyclones: Occur in the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean, often impacting countries from Australia all the way to Mozambique. Cyclone season typically runs from November to April.

Typhoons: Occur in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, frequently hitting the Philippines and Japan. Typhoon season is most common between May and October, but they can form year-round. The strength of a typhoon has various classification scales with the most severe storms named “super typhoons”.

How does a tropical storm form?

Tropical storms form over warm ocean waters near the equator. As this warm air rises, an area of lower air pressure is formed. As the air cools down again, it is pushed aside by more warm air rising below it. This cycle causes strong winds and rain.

When this cycle gains momentum and strengthens, it creates a tropical storm. As the storm system rotates ever faster, an eye forms in the centre. The eye of the storm is very calm and clear and has very low air pressure.

When winds reach speeds of 63km/h (39mph) the storm is called a tropical storm. When the wind speeds reach 119km/h (74mph) the storm becomes a tropical cyclone, typhoon or hurricane.

Spain is tackling several major wildfires in one of its most destructive fire seasons in decades, fuelled by climate change, as the end of a severe 16-day heatwave and expected rainfall raised hopes that an end may be in sight.

Thousands of firefighters aided by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft continued on Tuesday to fight fires tearing through parched woodland that were especially severe in northwestern Spain, where the country’s weather agency AEMET reported a still “very high or extreme” fire risk — particularly in the Galicia region.

Authorities have suspended rail services and cut access to roads in the regions of Extremadura, Galicia, and Castile and Leon.

Firefighting units from Germany arrived in northern Spain on Tuesday to help fight the blazes, Spain’s Ministry of the Interior announced. More than 20 vehicles were deployed to help fight an ongoing blaze in Jarilla in the Extremadura region that borders Portugal, the ministry said.

Visiting the fires in Extremadura, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the government would declare many of the affected areas as emergency zones, which in practice means they will be eligible to receive aid for reconstruction.

Blaming the fires on the effects of climate change, he also said he would propose a plan next month to turn climate emergency policies into permanent state policies.

“We’re seeing the climate emergency accelerate and worsen significantly, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, each year,” he said.

Opposition leaders have said his proposal is a way to divert attention from his government’s poor handling of the fires.

AEMET, which on Monday declared the end of one of the longest heatwaves in the past five decades, now expects temperatures to fall and humidity to rise. However, it said that adverse conditions would remain in southern Spain, including in part of Extremadura.

The fires in Spain have killed four people this year and burned more than 382,000 hectares (944,000 acres) or about 3,820 square kiolometres (1,475sq miles), according to the European Union’s European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

Many fires have been triggered by human activity. Police have detained 23 people for suspected arson and are investigating 89 more, Spain’s Civil Guard said.

The Spanish army has deployed 3,400 troops and 50 aircraft to help firefighters, while the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia have sent hundreds of firefighters, vehicles and aircraft.

Along the Iberian Peninsula in Portugal, more than 3,700 firefighters were tackling blazes, including four major ones in the north and centre.

Wildfires there have burned about 235,000 hectares or 907 square miles, according to EFFIS — nearly five times more than the 2006-2024 average for this period. Two people there have died.

“The devastation [from the wildfires] is enormous, it looks like an apocalyptic landscape,” said Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from Coutada, Portugal.

“What is of immense concern to the firefighters is not just putting out the flames, which have gone out of control … but also the danger of reignition,” said Gallego.

Another challenge facing firefighters, she noted, is accessing “a source of water which is close enough where they can collect water and extinguish those flames.”

Most of Southern Europe is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades.

Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists say that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.

Army says military doctors are treating survivors and engineers are repairing damaged infrastructure.

Pakistan has restored 70 percent of electricity service and reopened damaged roads in the north and northwest after flash floods killed more than 300 people, officials say.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Tuesday that engineers were working to fully restore the electricity system that was knocked out by flooding last week.

Monsoon rains triggered floods that have killed more than 700 people nationwide since June 26, the National Disaster Management Authority reported, while Tarar said more than 25,000 people have been evacuated.

The information minister said most roads have been cleared, facilitating the supply of food and other essentials to flood-affected areas.

Army spokesman Ahmed Sharif said military doctors are treating survivors and engineers are repairing damaged infrastructure. Soldiers using helicopters have also delivered food and supplies to remote villages cut off by floods and landslides.

Monsoon rains continued to lash the country on Tuesday, including the southern port city of Karachi, flooding streets and disrupting everyday activities, officials said. Despite the government’s claims of preparedness, people could be seen wading through chest-high water along many roads.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered authorities to accelerate recovery efforts in Buner, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where torrential rains and a cloudburst on Friday killed at least 280 people, Tarar said. It was among the worst flooding since the rains began,

Twenty bodies were found on Tuesday there, the local district commissioner said.

Rescue teams are still searching for about 150 missing people, rescue official Mohammad Suhail said.

Angry villagers said there was no warning broadcast from mosque loudspeakers, as is often the case, and government relief has been slow. The government said the deluge struck before residents could be informed.

Sharif chaired a high-level meeting on Monday to review relief efforts in flood-hit areas.

Every year, many cities in Pakistan struggle to cope with the annual monsoon deluge, drawing criticism about poor planning. The monsoon season runs from July through September.

Authorities have warned of a possible repeat of Pakistan’s catastrophic 2022 floods, which killed more than 1,700 people and were blamed on climate change.

Thousands of firefighters, backed by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft, have battled more than 20 major wildfires raging across western Spain, where officials say a record area of land has already been burned.

Spain and neighbouring Portugal have been particularly affected by forest fires spurred by heatwaves and drought, blamed on climate change, that have hit southern Europe.

Two firefighters were killed on Sunday – one in each country, both in road accidents – taking the death toll to two in Portugal and four in Spain.

Spain’s civil protection chief, Virginia Barcones, told public television TVE that 23 blazes were classified as “operational level two”, meaning they pose a direct threat to nearby communities.

The fires, now entering their second week, are concentrated in the western regions of Castile and Leon, Galicia, and Extremadura, where thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.

More than 343,000 hectares (848,000 acres) of land – the equivalent of nearly half a million football pitches – have been destroyed this year in Spain, setting a new national record, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

The previous record of 306,000 hectares (756,142 acres) was set in the same period three years ago.

Help from abroad

Spain is being helped with firefighting aircraft from France, Italy, Slovakia, and the Netherlands, while Portugal is receiving air support from Sweden and Morocco.

However, the size and severity of the fires and the intensity of the smoke were making “airborne action” difficult, Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles told TVE.

Across the border in Portugal, about 2,000 firefighters were deployed across the north and centre of the country on Monday, with about half of them concentrated in the town of Arganil.

About 216,000 hectares (533,747 acres) of land have been destroyed across Portugal since the start of the year.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the country had endured 24 days of weather conditions of “unprecedented severity”, with high temperatures and strong winds.

“We are at war, and we must triumph in this fight,” he added.

Officials in both countries expressed hope that the weather would turn to help tackle the fires.

Spain’s meteorological agency said the heatwave, which has seen temperatures hit 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of the country, was coming to an end.

A new wave of flooding has swept through villages in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Officials say at least 20 people were killed when fresh monsoon rains added to the ongoing flood emergency in the region.

Emergency services are under strain due to the ‘worst’ fires in Portugal in years, Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego says.

Thousands of firefighters backed by the military are battling dozens of wildfires across Spain and Portugal as the death toll has increased to six since the outbreaks began.

Two firefighters were killed on Sunday – one in each country, both in road accidents – taking the death toll to two in Portugal and four in Spain.

The Iberian Peninsula has been particularly affected by wildfires that have ravaged Southern Europe this summer. They have been fuelled by heatwaves and drought blamed on climate change.

On Monday, five major fires remained active in Portugal with more than 3,800 firefighters tackling them, civil protection authorities said.

“We still have firefighters who are monitoring the area here, the occasional smoke which is coming out from the land here, but of course, these are the charred remains of the flames that just completely consumed these hills,” Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego said, reporting from Tarouca, Portugal.

The fires in the Portuguese town are now under control, but emergency services are worried about the possibility of them reigniting, Gallego said.

Emergency services are already under “enormous strain” in what appears to be some of the “worst” fires in the area in years, she added.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said a firefighter died on Sunday in a traffic accident that seriously injured two colleagues.

A former mayor in the eastern town of Guarda also died on Friday while trying to fight a fire.

About 2,160sq km (835sq miles) of land has burned across Portugal since the start of the year.

Neighbouring Spain battles blazes too

In Spain, more than 3,430sq km (1,325sq miles) of land has burned this year, setting a new national record, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.

The head of Spain’s Civil Protection and Emergencies agency, Virginia Barcones, told broadcaster TVE on Monday that there were 23 “active fires” that pose a serious and direct threat to people.

The fires, now in their second week, were concentrated in the northwestern regions of Galicia, Castile and Leon, and Extremadura.

In Ourense province of Galicia, firefighters battled to put out fires as locals in just shorts and T-shirts used water from hoses and buckets to try to stop the spread.

Officials in Castile and Leon said a firefighter died on Sunday night when the water truck he was driving flipped over on a steep forest road and down a slope.

Two other volunteer firefighters have died in Castile and Leon while a Romanian employee of a riding school north of Madrid lost his life trying to protect horses from a fire.

Rains sweep away villages in worst-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as rescuers search for 150 missing people.

At least 20 people have been killed when new monsoon rains caused flooding in northwestern Pakistan, local officials say, as the region is ravaged by an unusually intense and deadly monsoon season.

“A cloudburst in the Gadoon area of Swabi completely destroyed several houses, killing more than 20 people,” a local official in the district told the AFP news agency on Monday. Local Pakistani media also reported on the latest deaths due to the flooding.

Three to five villages were wiped out by the huge amount of rain falling in a short period of time, a second official said, confirming the death toll in the worst-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The new deluge comes as rescuers continue to search for 150 people still missing in several districts across the province.

More soon.

Rescuers are looking for more than 150 people who were still missing on Monday in northwestern Pakistan, which was devastated by landslides and flash floods on Friday.

Torrential rains triggered the flash foods killing at least 344 people and destroying hundreds of homes.

Most of the deaths – 317 – were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where monsoon rains, expected only to intensify in the days ahead, have driven flooding and landslides that collapsed houses.

More than 150 people are missing in Buner, where at least 208 were killed and “10 to 12 entire villages” were partially buried, according to authorities.

“They could be trapped under the rubble of their homes, or swept away by floodwaters,” said Asfandyar Khattak, head of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority.

“Separately, in Shangla district, dozens of people are also reported missing,” Khattak added.

The spokesman for the province’s rescue agency said about 2,000 rescue workers are involved across nine districts, where rain is still hampering efforts.

“The operation to rescue people trapped under debris is ongoing,” said Bilal Ahmad Faizi.

“The chances of those buried under the debris surviving are very slim,” he added.

After days without power, the electricity supply was restored on Sunday afternoon.

Flooded roads hampered the movement of rescue vehicles, as a few villagers worked to cut fallen trees to clear the way after the water receded.

The provincial government has declared the severely affected mountainous districts of Buner, Bajaur, Swat, Shangla, Mansehra, and Battagram as disaster-hit areas.

On Saturday, hundreds gathered for mass funerals, where bodies wrapped in blood-stained white shawls were laid out on the village ground.

Iran said it stood ready to provide “any cooperation and assistance aimed at alleviating the suffering” in neighbouring Pakistan, while Pope Leo XIV addressed the flooding with prayers “for all those who suffer because of this calamity”.

The monsoon season brings South Asia about three-quarters of its annual rainfall – vital for agriculture and food provision – but also brings destruction.

“The intensity of this year’s monsoon is about 50 to 60 percent more than last year,” said Lieutenant General Inam Haider, chairman of the national disaster agency.

“Two to three more monsoon spells are expected until the first weeks of September,” he told journalists in Islamabad.

Landslides and flash floods are common during the season, which usually begins in June and eases by the end of September.

The torrential rains that have pounded Pakistan since the start of the summer monsoon have killed more than 650 people, with more than 920 injured.

Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, and is contending with extreme weather events with increasing frequency.

Spain has deployed a further 500 soldiers from the military emergency unit to support firefighting operations as it battles 20 major wildfires across the country during a heatwave that began last week.

“There are still some challenging days ahead, and unfortunately, the weather is not on our side,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said at a news conference on Sunday in Ourense, one of the most affected areas, in northwestern Spain.

He announced an increase in military reinforcements, bringing the total number of soldiers deployed across Spain to 1,900.

Firefighters are tackling 12 major wildfires in the northwestern region of Galicia alone, all of them near the city of Ourense, the head of the Galician regional government Alfonso Rueda also said during the news conference.

“Homes are still under threat, so we have lockdowns in place and are carrying out evacuations,” Rueda said.

The announcements came as authorities awaited the arrival of promised aircraft reinforcements from other European countries.

National rail operator Renfe said it suspended Madrid-Galicia high-speed train services scheduled for Sunday due to the fires.

Galician authorities advised people to wear face masks and limit their time spent outdoors to avoid inhaling smoke and ash.

Southern Europe is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades with Spain among the hardest-hit countries.

In the past week alone, fires there have killed three people and burned more than 1,150sq km (445sq miles) while neighbouring Portugal also battles widespread blazes.

Temperatures are expected to reach up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas on Sunday, Spain’s national weather agency, AEMET, said.

Virginia Barcones, director general of emergency services, told Spanish public TV that temperatures were expected to drop from Tuesday, but for now, the weather conditions were “very adverse”.

EU help on its way

“The fireplanes come in from all sides, but they don’t come here,” Basilio Rodriguez, a resident, told the Reuters news agency on Saturday.

Spain was expecting the arrival of two Dutch water-dumping planes that were to join aircraft from France and Italy already helping Spanish authorities under a European cooperation agreement.

Firefighters from other countries are also expected to arrive in the region in the coming days, Barcones told public broadcaster RTVE.

Ministry of Interior data show 27 people have been arrested and 92 were under investigation for suspected arson since June.

In neighbouring Portugal, wildfires have burned about 1,550sq km (600sq miles) of vegetation so far this year, according to provisional data from the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests – three times the average for this period from 2006 to 2024. About half of that area burned just in the past three days.

Thousands of firefighters were battling eight large blazes in central and northern Portugal, the largest of them near Piodao, a scenic, mountainous area popular with tourists.

Another blaze in Trancoso, farther north, has now been raging for eight days. A smaller fire just east of there killed a local resident on Friday – the first death this season.

Portugal is set for cooler weather in the coming days. A national state of alert due to wildfires was imposed on August 2 and was due to end on Sunday, a day before two Swedish firefighting planes were to arrive.

As in Spain, Portugal’s resources have been stretched. On Sunday, more than 4,000 firefighters and 1,300 vehicles were deployed as well as 17 aircraft, the Civil Protection Agency said.

Wildfires also burning in Turkiye

Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania have also requested help from the European Union’s firefighting force in recent days to deal with forest fires. The force has already been activated as many times this year as during all of last year’s summer fire season.

In Turkiye, where recent wildfires have killed 19 people, parts of the historic region that includes memorials to World War I’s Gallipoli campaign were evacuated on Sunday as blazes threatened homes in the country’s northwest.

Six villages were evacuated as a precautionary measure, the governor of Canakkale province, Omer Toraman, said.

About 1,300 firefighting personnel backed by 30 aircraft were battling the blazes, according to the General Directorate of Forestry.

Turkiye has been struck by hundreds of fires since late June, fuelled by record-breaking temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds.

Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists said climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.

Residents accuse officials of not warning them to evacuate as torrential rain, cloudbursts trigger deadly flooding.

Climate change-induced flash floods have killed at least 337 people in northwestern Pakistan, according to the National Disaster Management Authority, while dozens remain missing after the area was hit by flash floods in recent days.

In Kishtwar district, emergency teams continued rescue efforts on Sunday in the remote village of Chositi. At least 60 were killed and some 150 injured, about 50 of them critically.

Mohammad Suhail, a spokesman for the emergency service, said 54 bodies were found after hours-long efforts in Buner, a mountainous district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where torrential rains and cloudbursts triggered massive flooding on Friday.

Suhail said several villagers remained missing. Search efforts focused on areas where homes were flattened by torrents of water that swept down from the mountains, carrying massive boulders that smashed into houses like explosions.

Cloudbursts also caused devastation in Indian-administered Kashmir. Flash floods were reported in two villages in the Kathua district, killing at least seven people and injuring five others overnight, officials said.

Authorities have warned of more deluges and possible landslides between now and Tuesday, urging local administrations to remain on alert. Higher-than-normal monsoon rains have lashed the country since June 26 and killed more than 600.

Government criticism

Angry residents in Buner accused officials of failing to warn them to evacuate after torrential rain and cloudbursts triggered deadly flooding and landslides. There was no warning broadcast from mosque loudspeakers, a traditional method in remote areas.

Mohammad Iqbal, a schoolteacher in Pir Baba village, told the Associated Press that the lack of a timely warning system caused casualties and forced many to flee their homes at the last moment.

“Survivors escaped with nothing,” he said. “If people had been informed earlier, lives could have been saved and residents could have moved to safer places.”

The government said that while an early warning system was in place, the sudden downpour in Buner was so intense that the deluge struck before residents could be alerted.

Lieutenant General Inam Haider Malik, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, told a news conference in Islamabad that Pakistan was experiencing shifting weather patterns because of climate change.

Since the monsoon season began in June, Pakistan has already received 50 percent more rainfall than in the same period last year, he added. He warned that more intense weather could follow, with heavy rains forecast to continue this month.

Asfandyar Khan Khattak, director-general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, said there was “no forecasting system anywhere in the world” that could predict the exact time and location of a cloudburst.

Idrees Mahsud, a disaster management official, said Pakistan’s early warning system used satellite imagery and meteorological data to send alerts to local authorities. These were shared through the media and community leaders. He said monsoon rains that once only swelled rivers now also triggered urban flooding.

Pakistan suffers regular flash floods and landslides during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September, particularly in the rugged northwest, where villages are often perched on steep slopes and riverbanks.

Experts say climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of such extreme weather events in South Asia. While Pakistan is estimated to produce less than one percent of planet-warming emissions, it faces heatwaves, heavy rains, glacial outburst floods, and cloudbursts that devastate local communities within hours.

More than 300 people have died in Pakistan after days of relentless monsoon rains triggered floods and landslides. Rescue efforts are still underway as thousands remain stranded, as homes, infrastructure, and livelihoods have been devastated.

Rescuers in northern Pakistan have pulled dozens of bodies overnight from homes ravaged by landslides and flash floods, taking the death toll to at least 321 in the past two days, according to disaster agencies.

Hundreds of rescue workers continue to search for survivors in the Buner district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan after torrential rains and cloudbursts caused massive flooding on Friday, washing away dozens of homes, according to the provincial Disaster Management Authority.

First responders are focusing recovery efforts in the villages of Pir Baba and Malik Pura, which suffered the highest casualties on Friday, according to Bunar deputy commissioner Kashif Qayyum.

“We do not know from where the floodwater came, but it came so fast that many could not leave their homes,” said Mohammad Khan, 53, a Pir Baba resident.

Dr Mohammad Tariq at a Buner government hospital reported that most victims died before reaching medical care. “Many among the dead were children and men, while women were away in the hills collecting firewood and grazing cattle,” he said.

At least 307 casualties are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Above-average rainfall in Pakistan, which experts attribute to climate change, has triggered floods and mudslides that have killed approximately 541 people since June 2, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

In neighbouring Indian-administered Kashmir, floods have killed dozens and displaced hundreds in recent days.

Experts note that cloudbursts have become increasingly common in India’s Himalayan regions and Pakistan’s northern areas, with climate change being a significant contributing factor.

Pakistani officials report that since Thursday, rescuers have evacuated more than 3,500 tourists stranded in flood-affected areas nationwide, though many tourists continue to ignore government warnings to avoid these regions despite the risk of additional landslides and flash floods.

In 2022, Pakistan experienced its worst monsoon season on record, killing more than 1,700 people and causing approximately $40bn in damage.

Disaster agency says the majority of deaths happened in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in northwest Pakistan.

The death toll from heavy monsoon rains that have triggered landslides and flash floods across northern Pakistan has risen to at least 164 people, according to the disaster authority.

Most of the deaths, 150, were recorded in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwestern Pakistan, including 78 people who died in the flood-hit Buner district, the National Disaster Management Authority said on Friday.

Later, a helicopter on a rescue mission in the flood-hit province crashed due to the bad weather, killing the five crew members, the government said.

Reporting from Islamabad, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said the helicopter was a military aircraft.

“This was a Pakistani military helicopter that was involved in a rescue operation. Helicopters are being used to help people in areas that are hard to access,” he said.

Hundreds evacuated

Dozens of people were injured as the deluge destroyed homes in villages in Buner, where authorities declared a state of emergency on Friday.

Rescuers evacuated 1,300 stranded tourists from the mountainous Mansehra district, which was hit by landslides on Thursday. At least 35 people were reported missing in these areas, according to local officials.

Nine more people were killed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir while five died in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, authorities said.

The Meteorological Department issued a heavy rain alert for the northwest, urging people to avoid “unnecessary exposure to vulnerable areas”.

Floods in India-administered Kashmir

The annual monsoon season brings South Asia 70 to 80 percent of its annual rainfall, which is vital for agriculture and food security but also brings destruction.

Landslides and flash floods are common during the season, which usually begins in June and eases by the end of September.

In India-administered Kashmir, rescuers continued to search for survivors under boulders and debris on Friday, a day after sudden floods triggered by heavy rains killed at least 60 people and left 200 missing.

Gushing mudslides and floodwaters inundated the village of Chasoti on Thursday, washing away pilgrims who had gathered for lunch before trekking up a hill to a popular religious site in the second such disaster in the Himalayas in a little more than a week.

The Himalayas are prone to floods and landslides, but some scientists said the intensity and frequency of these events are increasing due to climate change.

Torrential rain struck Chisoti, a town in Kishtwar district in Indian-administered Kashmir, on Thursday morning.

At least 37 people have been killed after a sudden cloudburst unleashed torrential rain in Indian-administered Kashmir, a disaster management official said, marking the second major disaster in the Himalayas in just over a week.

The deluge struck Chisoti, a town in Kishtwar district, on Thursday morning. The site serves as a key stop along the pilgrimage route to the Machail Mata temple, a revered Himalayan shrine dedicated to Goddess Durga.

Television footage showed terrified pilgrims crying as water surged through the settlement.

Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, described the situation as “grim” and said confirmed details were slow to emerge from the remote location.

Mohammed Irshad said rescue teams scouring the devastated Himalayan village of Chositi brought at least 100 people to safety.

“Dead bodies of 37 people have been recovered,” said Irshad, a top disaster management official, adding there was no count of any missing people available.

According to Ramesh Kumar, divisional commissioner of Kishtwar, the cloudburst hit at about 11:30am local time. He told ANI news agency that police and disaster response teams were on the ground, while army and air force units had also been mobilised. “Search and rescue operations are under way,” Kumar said.

An official, who asked not to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media, said the flood swept away a community kitchen and a security post set up to serve pilgrims. “A large number of pilgrims had gathered for lunch and they were washed away,” the official told the news agency Reuters.

The India Meteorological Department defines a cloudburst as a sudden, extreme downpour exceeding 100mm of rain in an hour, often triggering flash floods and landslides in mountainous regions during the monsoon.

Last week, a similar disaster in Uttarakhand, another Himalayan state, buried an entire village under mud and debris after heavy rains.

The Srinagar weather office has warned of further intense rainfall in several parts of Kashmir, including Kishtwar, and urged residents to avoid unstable structures, power lines and old trees due to the risk of fresh landslides and flash floods.

Negotiations to secure a global treaty to combat plastic pollution were in limbo as talks entered their final day after dozens of countries rejected the latest draft text.

With time running out to seal a deal among the 184 countries gathered at the United Nations in Geneva, the talks’ chair, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, produced a draft text based on the few areas of convergence, in an attempt to find common ground.

But the draft succeeded only in infuriating virtually all corners, and the text was immediately shredded as one country after another ripped it to bits.

For the self-styled ambitious countries, it was an empty document shorn of bold action like curbing production and phasing out toxic ingredients, and reduced to a waste management accord.

And for the so-called Like-Minded Group, with Gulf states leading the charge, it crossed too many of their red lines and did not do enough to narrow the scope of what they might be signing up for.

The talks towards a legally binding instrument on tackling plastic pollution opened on August 5 and were scheduled to close on Thursday, the latest attempt after five previous rounds of talks over the past two and a half years which failed to seal an agreement.

Valdivieso’s draft text does not limit plastic production or address chemicals used in plastic products, which have been contentious issues at the talks.

About 100 countries want to limit production as well as tackle cleanup and recycling. Many have said it’s essential to address toxic chemicals. Oil-producing countries only want to eliminate plastic waste.

The larger bloc of countries seeking more ambitious actions blasted what they consider a dearth of legally binding action. But oil-producing states said the text went too far for their liking.

Lowered ambition or ambition for all?

Panama said the goal was to end plastic pollution, not simply to reach an agreement.

“It is not ambition: it is surrender,” their negotiator said.

The European Union said the proposal was “not acceptable” and lacked “clear, robust and actionable measures”, while Kenya said there were “no global binding obligations on anything”.

Tuvalu, speaking for 14 Pacific island developing states, said the draft risked producing a treaty “that fails to protect our people, culture and ecosystem from the existential threat of plastic pollution”.

Britain called it a text that drives countries “towards the lowest common denominator”, and Norway said it was “not delivering on our promise … to end plastic pollution”.

Bangladesh said the draft “fundamentally fails” to reflect the “urgency of the crisis”, saying that it did not address the full life cycle of plastic items, nor their toxic chemical ingredients and their health impacts.

Oil-producing states, which call themselves the Like-Minded Group – and include Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran – want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management.

Kuwait, speaking for the group, said the text had “gone beyond our red lines”, adding that “without consensus, there is no treaty worth signing”.

“This is not about lowering ambition: it’s about making ambition possible for all,” it said.

Saudi Arabia said there were “many red lines crossed for the Arab Group” and reiterated calls for the scope of the treaty to be defined “once and for all”.

The United Arab Emirates said the draft “goes beyond the mandate” for the talks, while Qatar said that without a clear definition of scope, “we don’t understand what obligations we are entering into”.

India, while backing Kuwait, saw the draft as “a good enough starting point ” to go forward on finalising the text.

The draft could now change significantly and a new version is expected on Thursday, the last scheduled day of the negotiations.

With ministers in Geneva for the final day of negotiations, environmental NGOs following the talks urged them to grasp the moment.

The World Wide Fund for Nature said the remaining hours would be “critical in turning this around”.

“The implications of a watered-down, compromised text on people and nature around the world is immense,” and failure on Thursday “means more damage, more harm, more suffering”, it said.

Greenpeace delegation chief Graham Forbes called on ministers to “uphold the ambition they have promised” and address “the root cause: the relentless expansion of plastic production”.

The Center for International Environmental Law’s delegation chief David Azoulay said the draft was a “mockery”, and as for eventually getting to a deal, he said: “It will be very difficult to come back from this.”

More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is for single-use items.

Nearly half, or 46 percent, ends up in landfills, while 17 percent is incinerated and 22 percent is mismanaged and becomes rubbish.

New Delhi, India – “My right eye swells up in the heat, so I stopped going to the landfill last year,” says 38-year-old Sofia Begum, wiping her watering eyes. Begum married at the age of 13, and for more than 25 years, she and her husband have picked through mountains of rubbish at Delhi’s Ghazipur landfill, scavenging for recyclable waste they can sell to scrap dealers.

Dressed in a ragged, green and yellow kurta, and sitting on a chair in a narrow lane in the middle of the slum settlement where she lives beside the dump site, Begum explains that she came into contact with medical waste in 2022, which infected her eye.

Her eye swells up painfully when it is exposed to the sun for too long, so she has had to stop working in the summer months. Even in winter, she struggles to work as much as she used to.

“Now I can’t work as much. I used to carry 40 to 50 kilograms [88-110lbs] of waste a day. Now my capacity has reduced to half,” she says.

As temperatures in Delhi soared as high as 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) in June, causing the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to issue an “orange alert” for two days, three rubbish sites at Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla in India’s capital city became environmental ticking time bombs. Choking with rubbish and filled far beyond their capacity, these towering waste mountains have become hubs for toxic fires, methane leaks and an unbearable stench.

It’s a slow-burning public health threat that, every year, blights the lives of the tens of thousands of people who live in the shadow of these rubbish heaps.

Making a living from toxic work

Waste pickers are usually informal workers who earn a living by collecting, sorting and selling recyclable materials like plastic, paper and metal to scrap dealers. They are typically paid by those who buy the materials they forage, depending on the quality and quantity they can find and sort.

As a result, they have no stable income and their work is hazardous, particularly in the summer months.

According to a study published in the scientific journal Nature, the temperature at these landfill sites varies based on the size of the dump. The temperature from dumps exceeding 50 metres (164 feet) in height generally lies between 60 and 70C (158F) in the summer. This “heat-island effect” is caused by the decomposition of organic waste, which not only generates heat but also releases hazardous gases.

“These landfills are gas chambers in the making,” says Anant Bhan, a public health researcher who has specialised in global health, health policy and bioethics for 20 years. “Waste pickers work in extreme heat, surrounded by toxic gases. This leads to long-term health complications,” he explains.

“Additionally, they are exposed to several gases, like the highly flammable methane, which causes irritation to their respiratory system. The rotting waste also leads to skin-related complications among the waste pickers.”

Ghazipur, which now towers at least 65 metres (213 ft) high – equivalent to a 20-storey building – has become a potent symbol of Delhi’s climate crisis.

Begum’s eye started swelling up in the intense heat last year. “I went to the doctor and he suggested surgery to treat my eye, which would cost me around 30,000 rupees ($350) but I don’t have that kind of money,” she says.

Like other waste pickers, Begum says she is reluctant to visit the government hospital, where she could receive free treatment, as it can take six months to receive a diagnosis there. “It is a waste of time to stand in queue for long hours at the cost of work days, and the diagnosis takes months to come through,” she explains. “I prefer going to the Mohalla Clinic; they check the Aadhaar Card [a form of identification] and instantly give medicines.”

The Mohalla Clinics, an initiative started by former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, offer free primary healthcare, medicines and diagnostic tests to residents in low-income areas.

A ticking time bomb

On a blazing summer day in July as temperatures reach 40C (104F), Tanzila, 32, who also lives in the slum next to the landfill site, is preparing for her night shift of waste picking. “It’s just too hot now,” she says. Tanzila, a mother of three children aged eight to 16, who has done this job for 12 years, says she passed out from dehydration while working under the sun last year. “Now I only go at night. During the day, it feels like being baked alive.”

Slender and dressed in a full-sleeve red, floral kurta with a headscarf, Tanzila appears exhausted and weary. She explains that when she did work during the day. “I would go early in the morning, come back around 9am, then again go around 4pm and come back around 7pm. But for the past two years, I have been going with other women only at night during summers because it has become harder to work during the day in this weather.”

Sheikh Akbar Ali, cofounder of Basti Suraksha Manch and a former door-to-door waste picker, has been campaigning for the rights of waste pickers across 52 sites in Delhi for the past 20 years. He explains that the conditions can be more dangerous at night than during the day.

“There are many vehicles like the tractors and JCBs operating on the landfills at night, and the waste pickers who work at night wear torchlights on their head, which indicates their visibility on the landfill. However, waste and gas leaks are more visible during the day.” This is because fires and smoke can more easily be seen in the daylight.

Despite the government’s repeated assurances that these rubbish mountains will be cleared, little has changed on the ground. In the latest assurance made in May 2025, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Delhi’s environment minister, claimed that the “garbage mountains” would be completely cleared by 2028, contradicting his own statement from April 2025, in which he had said that they would “disappear like dinosaurs” in five years.

As the summer heat accelerates the decomposition of organic waste, the release of hazardous gases has worsened the air quality in Delhi, something environmentalists and public health experts have sounded the alarm over.

According to a report from AQI, an open-source air quality monitoring platform based in New Delhi, since 2020, satellites have detected 124 significant methane leaks across the city, including a particularly large one in Ghazipur in 2021, which leaked 156 tonnes of methane per hour.

Even though the same work which puts food on the table also makes them ill, waste pickers like Begum and Tanzila say they have little choice other than to continue with their work. “Garbage is gold to us. We don’t get bothered by the smell of waste. It feeds our families, and why would we leave?” asks Tanzila.

Their labour, unrecognised as a profession by the government, comes with few protections, no health insurance and no stable income. Rubbish pickers must fashion their own safety gear from whatever they can afford – such as used disposable masks which can be bought in the market for 5 to 10 rupees (6 to 11 cents) – but nothing is particularly effective at keeping workers free from hazards.

“They don’t wear gloves because the heat makes their hands sweat easily and they aren’t able to hold waste properly. Even the masks are a total waste because all the sweat gets collected in the mask, which makes it difficult for them to breathe,” adds Akbar.

When climate change and waste mismanagement meet

New Delhi’s civic bodies, which are under pressure from environmental and health activists to demonstrate some visible progress in tackling the city’s waste and pollution problems, have largely responded with quick fixes, most notably plans to build four incinerator plants in Okhla, Narela, Tenkhand and Ghazipur. But experts warn that such infrastructure-centric solutions only mask deeper problems and could also cause further environmental damage.

Incinerators often release various harmful pollutants such as dioxins, furans, mercury contamination and particulate matter into the air, which pose serious health risks, they say.

According to a 2010 report by the World Health Organization, dioxins are “highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer”.

Furthermore, if incineration plants replace landfill-based recycling, many fear the erasure of their livelihoods altogether.

“Delhi’s shift to incinerators has completely excluded informal waste pickers, particularly women,” says Bharati Chaturvedi, founder of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group. “It threatens their livelihoods and pushes them into deeper poverty. It is an environmental disaster in the making. Incinerators emit toxic fumes and undermine recycling efforts.”

“Beyond just closing landfills or building incinerators, we need to ensure that waste pickers have alternative livelihoods and are part of the formal waste management system,” says Chaturvedi.

“This is not just about clearing garbage,” she argues. “It’s about including waste pickers in the formal economy. It’s about creating decentralised, community-level waste management systems. And it’s about acknowledging that climate change and poverty are deeply interconnected.”

Activists and public health professionals advocate for the creation of a decentralised waste system, one that includes segregating waste into separate places according to type, ward-level composting (processing organic waste locally to avoid transportation), and robust recycling systems.

Formalising the role of waste pickers by offering legal recognition, fair wages, protective gear and access to welfare schemes would not only empower one of the city’s most vulnerable communities, but it would also help build a climate-resilient waste management model, say environment activists.

Back at the Ghazipur landfill, the reality remains grim. Fires break out with increasing frequency, and the acrid air clings to nearby homes. For residents and waste pickers, the daily battle against the heat, stench and illness is a matter of survival.

“Nothing has changed. The garbage grows, and we keep working,” says Shah Alam, Tanzila’s husband, who used to work solely as a waste picker but now also drives an electric rickshaw to earn a living. “During summers, more people fall sick, and we lose workdays. But what other option do we have?”

Possible ways to mitigate the risk include armouring the coastline and building breakwaters to relocating the monuments.

The Journal of Cultural Heritage has published a new study indicating that rising sea levels could push powerful seasonal waves into Easter Island’s 15 iconic moai statues, in the latest potential peril to cultural heritage from climate change.

“Sea level rise is real,” said Noah Paoa, lead author of the study published on Wednesday and a doctoral student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “It’s not a distant threat.”

About 50 other cultural sites in the area are also at risk from flooding.

Paoa, who is from Easter Island – a Chilean territory and volcanic island in Polynesia known to its Indigenous people as Rapa Nui – and his colleagues built a high-resolution “digital twin” of the island’s eastern coastline and ran computer models to simulate future wave impacts under various sea level rise scenarios. They then overlaid the results with maps of cultural sites to pinpoint which places could be inundated in the coming decades.

The findings show waves could reach Ahu Tongariki, the largest ceremonial platform on the island, as early as 2080. The site, home to the 15 towering moai, draws tens of thousands of visitors each year and is a cornerstone of the island’s tourism economy.

Beyond its economic value, the ahu is deeply woven into Rapa Nui’s cultural identity. It lies within Rapa Nui National Park, which encompasses much of the island and is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The roughly 900 moai statues across the island were built by the Rapa Nui people between the 10th and 16th centuries to honour important ancestors and chiefs.

The threat isn’t unprecedented. In 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded – a magnitude 9.5 off the coast of Chile – sent a tsunami surging across the Pacific. It struck Rapa Nui and swept the already-toppled moai further inland, which damaged some of their features. The monument was restored in the 1990s.

While the study focuses on Rapa Nui, its conclusions echo a wider reality: Cultural heritage sites worldwide are increasingly endangered by rising seas. A UNESCO report published last month found that about 50 World Heritage sites are highly exposed to coastal flooding.

A UNESCO spokesperson told The Associated Press news agency that climate change is the biggest threat to UNESCO’s World Heritage marine sites. “In the Mediterranean and Africa, nearly three-quarters of coastal low-lying sites are now exposed to erosion and flooding due to accelerated sea level rise.”

Possible defences for Ahu Tongariki range from armouring the coastline and building breakwaters to relocating the monuments.

Paoa hopes that the findings will bring these conversations about now, rather than after irreversible damage. “It’s best to look ahead and be proactive instead of reactive to the potential threats.”