Patrick Galey, Senior Investigator at Global Witness, said:
"Fossil fuels are by far the largest contributor to the climate change that is supercharging these deadly heatwaves, summer after summer. With hundreds of millions of people affected globally by extreme heat, we must remember the main driver of such temperature extremes: fossil fuels.
"Burning oil, gas, and coal for energy accounts for
over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of
all carbon dioxide emissions,
which trap the sun's heat leading to the crop-withering and life-threatening
heatwaves such as Cerberus and Charon currently baking southern Europe.
"Instead of naming each heatwave after characters from the mythical
underworld, perhaps we can start naming them after the oil and gas giants, who
last year banked record profits and whose business plans are making unbearable
hot spells more frequent, more intense, and longer lasting."