Valencia and man-made climate change

An unthinkable tragedy for Europe; a year's worth of rainfall in eight hours and over 150 people dead. People who as they woke on Tuesday 29 October 2024 had no idea that this would be their last day on earth, no idea that their lives would be snuffed out by a climate event of unimaginable magnitude. Drowned by surging water or crushed by toppling buildings.

The image that will stay with me of the Valencia floods is not one of people suffering or buildings destroyed, but of this street chock-full of cars (below), swept along by an incredibly powerful surge of water. And I'm thinking – how could this possibly happen? The physics of shifting vehicles – sideways it seems – each weighing one or two tonnes, in such numbers along such a narrow street – the sheer violence of what has happened is all too visible, but hard to take in. But it also shows what a car-dependent species we have become.

Photo credit: B. Hynde-Paywall

There should be no doubts left in anyone's mind that climate change is real; the planet is now over 1.2°C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times, and 0.4°C warmer than in 1980. The effect of that extra heat energy is more powerful storms and heavier rainfalls. Imperial College London's Grantham Institute that studies and attributes the effect of human greenhouse-gas emissions on the climate estimates that the extra 1.2°C of average heat in the system is responsible for rainfall events that can be up to 30% heavier than in pre-industrial times; a deadly difference.

To those who deny the fact that the climate is changing, here's a list of all the major flood events affecting Poland over the last century. Notice the increasing frequency.

Year/event	Fatalities in Poland
2024 Central European floods	9
2010 Central European floods	25
1997 Central European floods	54
1947 Polish floods	55
1934 flood in Poland	55

Slowly, I feel the message is getting through. Younger people are less likely to want to own or drive a car, and cars make up 12% of human greenhouse gas emissions. But we should all be doing more – or actually, doing less; as I wrote the other day, buying less, travelling less, consuming less.

If we don't, the climate will only continue to deliver more extreme weather events, more frequently. Today it's Valencia; next summer or autumn it could hit you, directly.

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