Every major religion in the world has some faint memory of the apocalypse caused by the Great Deluge several millennia back. The recent Dubai floods seem to have shown people around the world how poor humans are in handling nature’s fury.
Dubai was thrown out of gear by one of the unprecedented torrential storms that the desert state ever witnessed, highlighting the seriousness of climate change’s impact on people’s lives. Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, the floods showed Dubai’s unpreparedness to manage natural disasters. In fact, most modern cities could not have coped with the size of the deluge that hit Dubai.
Several Indian cities have faced similar heavy flooding in the last few years. Aside from causing damage to infrastructure, heavy rains occurring in a short period fail to recharge underground water, leading to drought — as happened in Telangana this year.
According to climate scientists, rising global temperatures, caused by human-led climate change, is leading to more extreme weather events around the world, including intense rainfall. In 2023, there were 10 extreme climate events in the world. However, world leaders are not paying attention to one of the most pressing issues concerning eight billion people.
If one of the richest countries in the world like Dubai cannot contain such a disaster, the less said about the poor nations the better. The developed world, which controls 80 per cent of global resources, should come forward to design a roadmap to fund physical infrastructure that manages extreme weather events and leads the world to reduce the pace of climate change.
The eight billion people — rich and also poor — have only one planet to live on and we should not wait until another apocalypse knocks at the doors of humanity and make our future generations tell its story with trepidation.
