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| Sat, 5th Nov 2022 11:43:00 |
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‘It was like an apocalyptic movie’: 20 climate photographs that changed the world |
They are the images that made us sit up and take notice. As world leaders gather for Cop27, these pictures prove that global heating isn’t a distant possibility – it’s already here
An iceberg threatens a village in Greenland, July 2018, Magnus Kristensen
For a week in July 2018, a giant 100m-tall iceberg loomed over a tiny village on the west coast of Greenland. Villagers were evacuated, and the world watched in suspense: if a chunk of the 10m-tonne iceberg had broken apart or “calved”, it would have caused a tsunami and obliterated the settlement of Innaarsuit. Eventually, it drifted away from the shore – but as glaciers melt, we can expect to see more masses of ice breaking off and floating dangerously close to land.
Dust storms hit New South Wales, Australia, January 2020, Jason Davies
This drone-captured image shows a monster dust storm that engulfed central New South Wales in Australia in January 2020. One local resident described the scene as “like an apocalyptic movie”. Drier conditions caused by climate change have been linked to an increase in the frequency and severity of sand and dust storms across the globe. As well as affecting agriculture, industry and the climate itself, airborne dust can cause serious health problems.
A family clings to life in a wildfire, Tasmania, January 2013, Tim Holmes
Seen as the defining image of the fires that ravaged Australia in 2013, this photo shows a woman and her five grandchildren taking refuge in the water under a jetty. A bushfire had engulfed their home in a small fishing town in Tasmania. The image was shot by the children’s grandfather, Tim Holmes, before he managed to retrieve a dinghy in which the family could evacuate. “The atmosphere was so incredibly toxic,” Holmes told an interviewer soon after. “We were all just heads, water up to our chins, just trying to breathe.”
China’s record-breaking heatwave, August 2022, Thomas Peter
The worst heatwave ever recorded took place in China this summer. Soaring temperatures, drought and wildfires led to crop failures, power shortages and factory shutdowns. In this dramatic image, the pagodas of Luoxingdun Island can be seen towering over the dried-out bed of the country’s largest freshwater lake in the south-east Jiangxi province.
A man pushes children on a satellite dish through flooding in the Jaffarabad district of Pakistan, August 2022, Fida Hussain
Catastrophic flooding in Pakistan this summer submerged a third of the country, destroying homes, communities and livestock. An estimated 33 million people – that’s one in seven of the population – have been affected. At least 1,700 have died. Waterborne diseases and malnutrition are among the main continuing health threats. The long-term economic impact will be vast.
Scientists believe climate change is likely to have supercharged the intense rainfall that led to the flooding. UN secretary general António Guterres called it a “monsoon on steroids”. And worryingly, such extreme flooding events are likely to become more frequent around the world.
Pakistan’s climate minister, Sherry Rehman, has issued a call for “reparations” from richer countries with higher emissions. As she said in September, “Global warming is the existential crisis facing the world, and Pakistan is ground zero – yet we have contributed less than 1% to emissions.”
The British-Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie agrees. “The world’s richest countries are the ones most responsible for the climate catastrophe, and it’s the poorer nations who are paying the heaviest price. We need urgent and binding commitments from the G20 nations towards net zero,” she says. “As for the poorer nations, such as Pakistan, where the calamity has already occurred, ‘financial aid’ isn’t what is needed – we need to stop using that phrase and replace it with words such as: ‘climate justice’, ‘reparation’, ‘obligation’.”
Giraffes die of thirst in Kenya, December 2021, Ed Ram
Over the past two years, the Horn of Africa has experienced the worst drought in more than four decades, leading to millions of deaths of humans and animals. The devastation is encapsulated in this aerial shot by photojournalist Ed Ram, showing the carcasses of six giraffes strewn across the arid ground on the outskirts of a village in Kenya’s Wajir county. The animals died after getting stuck in mud when trying to drink from a reservoir that had almost dried up.
SOS sign in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria, September 2017, Angelina Ruiz-Lambides
This photograph of an SOS sign scrawled on the pavement in the coastal town of Punta Santiago in Puerto Rico became the defining image of Hurricane Maria, the lethal storm that swept through the northern Caribbean in September 2017. Around 3,000 people died and the disaster caused $90bn (£80bn) in damage. Across Puerto Rico, power was cut off; an aid official spotted this distress signal during an aerial assessment of the aftermath. The snap was circulated on social media and brought help to Punta Santiago soon after.
The image left no doubt that we are already in a climate emergency. Huge storms routinely devastate coastal and island populations, with marginalised communities – which usually have weaker infrastructure, fewer resources for evacuation and insufficient insurance cover – disproportionately affected.
And so-called “natural disasters” are being turbocharged by the warming planet. Kerry Emanuel, a meteorologist who has spent more than 40 years studying the links between hurricanes and climate change, explains: “Hurricanes are powered by the flux of heat from the ocean to the atmosphere when sea water evaporates. Theory, models and observations all point to increasing wind speeds and rainfall in hurricanes as a consequence of global warming.”
How does it feel to be on the frontline of a hurricane disaster? “Being on the island and completely disconnected, we didn’t realise how far our picture travelled,” said resident Janet Gonzalez a year after Maria hit Puerto Rico. “We’re thankful that it did. But now, we’re ready to turn the page.”
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