Peru’s Floods Follow Climate Change's Deadly Extreme Weather Trend

Peru's worst floods in nearly a century have killed more than 70 people, left 70,000 homeless in nearly every province and damaged 130,000 structures, including ancient archaeological sites. The downpours inundated the country in the first half of March, then moved north over Colombia, causing a mudslide that killed hundreds.

Flooding in Peru has left tens of thousands of people
homeless, following the global trend of extreme weather
 made more likely by climate change. 

The intense rain and flooding in Peru took emergency workers and scientists by surprise, because such extreme downpours typically are associated with a large-scale El Niño phenomenon. But the latest El Niño ended nearly a year ago.

The flooding instead has been linked to an exceptional and sudden emergence of extra-warm ocean waters just off Peru's coast, what scientists call a coastal El Niño. Since mid-March, NOAA satellites have showed this patch of the eastern Pacific as the most anomalously warm ocean region in the world. 

It won't be clear whether human-caused global warming was a direct factor in the flooding unless scientists do an attribution study. That would determine how much the buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases increased the odds of it happening. But the unusual heat blast and flooding are consistent with global warming, according to scientists.

Read the Inside Climate News story - “Peru’s Floods Follow Climate Change's Deadly Extreme Weather Trend.”

Death toll hits 72 as Peru's floods confirmed the worst for two decades

Authorities in Peru have declared that the intense rains, overflowing rivers, mudslides and flooding being experienced in the country are the worst seen in two decades, with the death toll since the beginning of the year having hit 72.

Residents salvage belongings from
 their destroyed home in Huachipa
in the capital Lima.

The highly unusual rains follow a series of storms that have struck hard along Peru's northern coast, with voracious waters inundating hospitals and leaving some small villages isolated.

The storms are being caused by a warming of the surface waters in the Pacific Ocean and are expected to continue for another two weeks, with the disaster affecting more than half the nation.

The Peruvian Government said that 374 people were killed in 1998 during a similar period of massive rains and flooding blamed on the El Nino climate pattern.

Read the ABC story - “Death toll hits 72 as Peru's floods confirmed the worst for two decades.”

Ecuadoran visitor finds her country in the news for all the wrong reasons

“

Isabel", who has a special interest in the environment and the state of the world, came from Ecuador to study at the University of Melbourne.

Nearly two years ago she became a friend of Beneath the Wisteria, but several months ago returned home and now her home country is in the news, for all the wrong reasons.

A story on Business Insider Australia - “Ecuador To Sell A Third Of Its Amazon Rainforest To Chinese Oil Companies” – would undoubtedly frustrate Isabel.

The story says, “Ecuador is planning to auction off three million of the country’s 8.1 million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies, Jonathan Kaiman of The Guardian reports.

“The report comes as oil pollution forced neighbouring Peru to declare an environmental state of emergency in its northern Amazon rainforest.

“Ecuador owed China more than $7 billion — more than a tenth of its GDP — as of last summer.

“In 2009 China began loaning Ecuador billions of dollars in exchange for oil shipments. It also helped fund two of the country’s biggest hydroelectric infrastructure projects, and China National Petroleum Corp may soon have a 30 per cent stake in a $10 billion oil refinery in Ecuador.”

Peruvian culture threatened by climate change

C

ulture, in its many facets, will be a victim of climate change.

El Niño, a product of climate change, threatens many iconic cultural sites in Peru and so the government there is spending enthusiastically to reinforce defences to protect 22 coastal archaeological sites before heavy weather sets in as it is expected to do later this year on the back of an intense El Niño.

Peru this Week tells us more about this in its story headed: “Archaeologists rush to defend fragile sites against intense El Niño”.

Australia has the best resource, but it is a laggard

Australia is among the best placed of developed countries to use solar power, but it is Peru that is showing the way.

Wearechange.org tells us that “Peru Is Now Giving Free Solar Power To Its 2 Million Poorest Citizens”.

It says, “The National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program will cost about $200 million, which is basically nothing in the scheme of most international budgets. Peru also leads the way in national dedication to organic food and doesn’t allow GMO.”

Euroa lecture takes on added emphais considering Lima outcome

A lecture in Euroa early next year has a rather special emphasis following the outcome of the Lima climate change conference.

University of Melbourne climate scientist, Prof David Karoly will discuss: “2015 watershed year for climate change: from Lima to Paris.”

That conversation will be on Saturday, February 7, at 11:00am at the town’s Four Mill in Kirkland Ave. The public is invited to attend and admission is free.

Exhausting talks at Lima ended up with a less the positive conclusion making the journey for intent from Peru to Paris somewhat problematic.

An Inside Climate News report noted: “It is "very clear" that countries' pledges on carbon emissions won't be ambitious enough to tip the world into a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, said Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”.

The story head: “What Will It Take to Get a Climate Accord in Paris?” discusses a plan to successfully make the trip from Peru to Paris.

Lima talks leave delegates exhausted, but now the hard work starts

A fortnight of tense-talks at Lima left delegates from nearly 200 countries exhausted.

Now those same delegates must take a deep breath and the result of the Lima climate change discussions back to their respective countries and begin the really hard work.

Equipped with understandings from the Lima talks, they must now come up with a respective national plan for reining in greenhouse gas emissions by an informal deadline of March 31, 2015 – conversations in Lima, Peru, were undoubtedly difficult, but back home they face a new regime of demands and measurements that will be used to form the basis of a global agreement due at a summit in Paris in a year's time.

An ABC story headed: “COP20 Climate Forum: Lima UN talks agree on building blocks for 2015 climate deal” sets the scene.

Climate change talks escape, but have a risky French future

Climate change talks in Lima have pulled back from the brink of disaster but the prospect of a future global climate change deal in Paris next year is now under a cloud.

Late on Saturday night in Peru, negotiators agreed to a highly watered-down deal that stripped out a formal review process for the post-2020 commitments that countries will make before Paris next year. Difficult issues such as whether the Paris deal will be legally binding were also put off.

Read the full story here: “Lima climate conference tensions may bring storm clouds to Paris.”

The human face of climate change is often hidden

The noise of the melting, crashing glaciers
in Peru adds something of a "human face'.

The human face of climate change rarely shows itself in Australia, at least officially.

Australians, like most others in the world, are becoming normalized to the extreme and different weather that has become a constant companion around the world.

The recent super-cell storm that swept through Brisbane causing damage worth in excess of more than $1 million was described as a “freak storm”.

That, along the simple and definable things such as warmer night’s, which have the finger prints of climate change all over them, are simply morphing into becoming how things are meant to be.

Even though our scientists can clearly define the damage we have caused to earth’s atmosphere, few people are prepared to risk reputation in declaring such events as that in Brisbane as clear evidence of climate change.

Writing in the Age in a story headed: “Annual United Nations climate conference held in Peru, the human face of climate risks” Marcus Priest discusses the human face of climate change in Peru, the venue for next week’s annual United Nations climate conference.