This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on April 18 - 24, 2016.

The current hot spell in the country, which has pushed temperatures beyond 37°C, whereas it rarely climbs beyond 33°C at other times, and has caused water shortages in five states, disrupted agriculture and forced schools to close, makes it timely to pay attention to the probability that catastrophic climate change may severely impact our lives in the coming years.

It is pertinent that the scorching weather, which is attributed to a Super El Niño, comes on the back of the hottest year (2015) since climate records have been kept. Also, the current El Niño is among the top three most severe occurrences of the phenomenon on record.

Reports on the impacts of the hot weather have become standard fare for the daily news. Economic crops like oil palm have suffered a drop in output of nearly 20%, mango production reportedly shrunk by 60% and some fish breeders have had to stop their business when the heat killed the fish fry or their ponds dried up.

Nevertheless, the toll on Malaysia pales in comparison with the deadly drought that has gripped parts of Africa and Asia-Pacific, and both droughts and floods that have hit the Americas. Tens of millions of people are facing a food crisis in the drought-affected regions of Africa and Asia while severe flooding plagues parts of South America. Last week, Malawi — one of the worst-hit countries in eastern and southern Africa — declared a state of national disaster as about 20% of its population are confronted by food shortages. The UN estimates that about 50 million people in the region are affected.

So, higher temperatures are evidently pushing the world towards a humanitarian crisis. Beyond food shortages, changing weather patterns have been shown to have multiple impacts on human life and nature — including on agriculture, fisheries, ecosystems, health, energy demand and air quality. The risks of wildfires around the globe are also heightened.

Emerging crises in all these areas require both immediate interventions and longer-term responses that will force the diversion of increasing amounts of resources away from economic growth towards mitigation and adaptation measures as the impacts of climate change grow in severity.

Already, national budgeting for climate change is a standard feature of development planning. Malawi, for example, needs US$5 billion (RM19.52 billion) for its five-year national climate change investment plan (2014) to drive mitigation, adaption, capacity building and research and technology, according to the UNDP.

Globally, the scale of the climate challenge is at an altogether different level. The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which was set up “to examine whether it is possible to achieve lasting economic growth while also tackling climate change”, estimates that in the next 15 years, around US$90 trillion (RM351.82 trillion) will be invested in infrastructure in the world’s urban, land use and energy systems.

Across these systems, three drivers of change must be harnessed to overcome market, policy and institutional barriers to low-carbon or climate-friendly growth, the commission states. Firstly, raising resource efficiency is at the heart of both a sustainable growth trajectory and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Next, investment in low-carbon forms of infrastructure is critical. Thirdly, innovations in technologies, business models and social practices must drive both growth and emissions reduction.

However, although the accelerating onslaught of climate disasters is hammering home the message that human society is not adapting quickly enough to the climate crisis, the inertia of governments, businesses and the people does not appear to be giving way.

Standing in dramatic contrast to this heedlessness is the invigorating example of the Rockefeller Family Fund, which has announced that it will be divesting all its investments from fossil fuel companies as quickly as possible.

Not only has it acted on the ample evidence of the link between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming, the fund took the morally fitting stand of reprimanding ExxonMobil for claiming that climate science was not proven when its in-house scientists were warning company executives otherwise, which was the subject of a New York state investigation.

Nevertheless, not all the Rockefeller family’s money has been withdrawn from fossil fuels, the Guardian newspaper has reported. The much wealthier Rockefeller Foundation, whose endowment tops US$4 billion (RM15.65 billion), is understood to be opposed to divestment for now, the paper said.

Responding to the charge, an Exxon spokesperson had said that the fund was backing a conspiracy against the company, which the RFF denied.

While it is too soon to tell whether the example set by the fund would gain traction with other foundations and institutional investors, the prevailing situation shows that the paradigm shift in business models and social practices that the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate is banking on for averting climate chaos will be a long time coming.

This only goes to show that while a blueprint for a green future is a great stride forward, and an intergovernmental consensus on climate action spells much hope for humanity, the swift progress on the issue that the world needs right away will only come about when understanding turns into heartfelt conviction, one individual at a time.

R B Bhattacharjee is associate editor at The Edge Malaysia

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