Guardian: ‘My head spins with the heat’ – India’s gig workers battle exhaustion amid soaring temperatures

Guardian: ‘My head spins with the heat’ – India’s gig workers battle exhaustion amid soaring temperatures.

The climate crisis is a serious health crisis. From the report:

Rising temperatures are turning cities across south and south-east Asia into places where workers can no longer recover from the heat. A new report by US-based People’s Courage International (PCI), using research in Delhi, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Jakarta and Quezon City, has found hotter nights, combined with the urban heat island effect – the trapping of heat inside dense cities – are leaving millions of informal workers exhausted before a new workday even begins.

And

The crisis is worsening in south Asia as climate change is predicted to triple the chance of pre-monsoon heatwaves, such as a 15-day one that turned deadly last month. Scientists say night-time temperatures are rising faster than daytime temperatures across much of the region, reducing the hours people once relied on to recover from extreme heat.

Across Asia, the International Labour Organization estimates that more than 70% of the workforce are exposed to excessive heat at some point during their jobs, with informal workers among the most vulnerable. This has a big impact in countries like India, where nearly 90% of workers are employed in the informal economy.

Link.

Le Monde: Heat dome over Europe scorches UK, France, Spain

Le Monde: Heat dome over Europe scorches UK, France, Spain.

All time record highs for the month of May bring in the first European heatwave of 2026. Among those was the UK where temps reached 34.8C, surpassing the previous all-time May peak of 32.8C, reached in 1922 and 1944. From the report:

Temperatures hit record highs for May in the United Kingdom and France on Monday, May 25, as forecasters warned of a prolonged period of extreme heat across Europe throughout the week. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer.

And

A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and farmers reported accelerated harvests as temperatures went beyond 30°C across the region. Scientists say human-driven climate change is amplifying such extremes, with Europe warming faster than the global average and heatwaves growing more frequent and severe.

Link.

Guardian: ‘It’s no longer exceptional’ – Karachi struggles under brutal new reality of extreme heat

Guardian: ‘It’s no longer exceptional’ – Karachi struggles under brutal new reality of extreme heat.

The climate crisis driving a health crisis is rapidly reshaping everyday life. From the report:

An intense and prolonged heatwave has been causing misery for millions across Pakistan and India. In southern Pakistan throughout April and May, temperatures have risen far above seasonal norms. In Sindh, daytime temperatures have frequently crossed 44C to 46C, forcing residents indoors during peak afternoon hours and severely affecting outdoor labourers, transport workers and farming communities.

And

The strain is also becoming visible in local healthcare facilities. Dr Suresh Kumar, who heads the children’s ward at Ibrahim Hyderi government hospital, said the number of children visiting the outpatient department has risen sharply since the last week of April. “On normal days, we would see around 50 to 60 children,” he said. “Now the number has crossed 200 daily.”

And

The World Weather Attribution group has looked at the current extreme heat in Pakistan and India and found that “human-caused climate change approximately tripled the probability of an event like this happening, making it no longer exceptional in today’s climate. The same heat event would have been about 1C cooler in a pre-industrial climate.”

Link.

Declare climate crisis a global public health emergency, experts tell WHO

Guardian: Declare climate crisis a global public health emergency, experts tell WHO

.. Or millions will die unnecessarily, according to a report issued on Saturday by the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health. From The Guardian report:

The independent pan-European commission on climate and health, which was convened by the WHO, concluded the climate crisis was such a worldwide threat to health that the WHO should declare it “a public health emergency of international concern” (Pheic).

The international spread of vector-borne disease, such as dengue and chikungunya, as well as the health impacts of extreme weather events, global heating, food insecurity and air pollution make a Pheic necessary, said the commission’s report, which will be presented to European ministers on Sunday before the WHO’s world health assembly starts on Monday.

And, notably:

The commission also urged governments to stop subsidising fossil fuels, which are directly responsible for 600,000 premature deaths a year in Europe alone. The region spends about €444bn (£387bn) a year on subsidies for oil and gas production, the report said. In 12 European countries, fossil fuel subsidies exceeded 10% of national health expenditure in 2023 and in four exceeded the entire health budget, the report observed.

From the WHO press release:

The commission’s report drew up 17 recommendations spanning four areas: treating climate change as a growing threat to health security, transforming health systems, scaling up local action, and reforming the economic and financial systems that are driving the climate crisis.

Download the Call to Action.

Watch ‘Freshwater’, a mini-documentary by dream hampton

In case you missed it when when it was featured on NYT Docs and PBS POV in 2023, this is ‘Freshwater’ by dream hampton, an evocative short taking on memory, loss and displacement in Detroit communities after devastating floods in 2021. And likely the most beautifully poignant nine minutes you’ll experience today.

One of the the most thoughtful capsule reviews I read was by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who writes:

‘Freshwater’ is “a meditative, intimate, quietly devastating piece that uses the language of memory, water, and place to make climate change feel personal. dream narrates, talking us through flooded basements of homes in her home city of Detroit, Michigan.”

And in the film notes, hampton explains:

“Freshwater is a portrait of remembrance, of flooded Midwestern basements and maintaining connection in the wake of ongoing displacement, abandonment and climate catastrophe. This film was meant to be small in every way–lingering shots that seem like photographs until the wind blows a leaf or a raindrop disturbs a puddle. Similarly the intentionally small production was meant to be healing. It was a retreat into a cadre of like-minded community of Detroit artists after doing work on three projects that were at major studios. I made Freshwater to remind myself I’m an artist, but also to reinforce the organizing principle about the power of small, local organizing.”

Oxfam: Fossil fuel companies projected to earn almost $3,000 a second in 2026

Oxfam: Fossil fuel companies projected to earn almost $3,000 a second in 2026.

From a report released on the eve of the first global conference on ‘Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels‘, which takes place in Santa Marta, Colombia:

Six of the biggest fossil fuel companies are projected to earn $2,967 a second in profits in 2026, new Oxfam research finds, ahead of the first global conference this week on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia. This marks an increase of almost $37 million a day compared to the 2025 profits of these six corporations – Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and TotalEnergies. Their total projected fossil fuel profits of 2026 are $94 billion: enough to provide solar power for the energy needs of almost 50 million people in Africa.

Link.

T&E: Flawed booking systems are preventing passengers from travelling by rail

T&E: Flawed booking systems are preventing passengers from travelling by rail.

Booking multi-country connecting flights is a snap. But booking rail connections on the same journeys is not. Research released today from the Brussels-based advocacy organization Transport & Environment (T&E) illustrates.

Europe’s rail renaissance will never reach its full potential unless passengers are able to book connecting and international trains in a few clicks. That’s the conclusion of new research by T&E which finds that on almost half of the EU’s busiest international air routes, booking the same journey by train is difficult or impossible.

T&E looked at the 30 busiest international air routes within the EU to see if the rail alternative was easy to book. On 20% of these routes, none of the rail operators allowed passengers to buy tickets for the whole journey. On a further 27% of the routes, passengers could only obtain such tickets from one of the train operators involved. Similar trends were found on a broader set of 50 international routes.

This finding is concerning as rail passengers tend to primarily buy tickets on the booking engine of their national incumbent operator. The convoluted booking experience is deterring all but the most committed. A recent YouGov poll for T&E found that 61% of long distance rail travellers have at least once avoided journeys because the booking process is a hassle.

And, according to a research team at the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten in Austria, on average it takes people 70% longer to book a train ticket than a flight.

And the fix:

The EU now has an opportunity to address these shortcomings. T&E calls on the European Commission’s forthcoming Single Ticketing Package to require major rail operators to display and sell other willing operators’ tickets under fair conditions and to share their own tickets with other operators and independent platforms. Independent platforms must also be required to sell willing operators’ tickets under fair conditions.

The proposal for the new Single Ticketing Package is due to be published by the European Commission on 13 May.

Link.