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Joe Biden (at a briefing on the heat wave)
Photo: MANDEL NGAN / AFP
In the face of persistent heat in the United States, US President Joe Biden has described the climate crisis as an "existential threat" and announced mitigating measures against extreme weather. I don't think anyone can deny the effects of climate change anymore," Biden said in Washington on Thursday. Record temperatures of well over 40 degrees Celsius in some cases affect "more than 100 million Americans".
Because of the heat, the U.S. government wants to provide funds to the U.S. climate agency NOAA to improve weather forecasts. In addition, access to drinking water in California is to be improved and workers who are exposed to enormous heat are better protected. Every year, according to U.S. authorities, 600 people die in the U.S. because of heat. Farmers, firefighters, construction workers and people with similar activities are particularly affected.
Biden also mentioned the "historic floods in Vermont and California earlier this year," as well as droughts, increasingly frequent hurricanes and wildfires. These days, the Atlantic Ocean near Miami is more like a heated whirlpool with water temperatures of over 30 degrees.
The United States is experiencing many extreme weather phenomena this summer. Metropolises such as New York disappeared in dense orange particles of smoke from the wildfires in Canada. July is likely to be the hottest month in thousands of years, climate scientists from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European climate change service Copernicus reported on Thursday.
phw/dpa