The world is failing to curb carbon, and we may be close to a scorched earth tipping point

July 7, 2026 — 5:00am

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Donald Trump is America’s first president to chant “drill, baby, drill”. And his Independence Day parade in Washington on the weekend was the first in 250 years to be cancelled due to intense heat.

On the same day, Iran, which has just flexed its oil muscles to coerce the world economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz, installed 6000 overhead sprinklers to cool the crowds at the funeral parade for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

World Cup games are being stopped for mandatory hydration breaks in every match for the first time to protect player health from extreme heat. And, in Paris, health regulations were relaxed to allow people to swim in the Seine, while French shops report a run on chalk because people are smearing their windows white to reflect sunlight.

It wasn’t enough, of course, to protect everyone. French authorities report a preliminary death toll due to heat of 2025 people in the week beginning June 22, the peak of its record heatwave, about 30 per cent more than in the corresponding week last year.

Altogether, the heatwave killed more than 4000 people in Western Europe, based on preliminary national tallies. Belgium’s authorities said they had seen the highest one-day death tolls since the first wave of the COVID pandemic.

The years 2023 to 2025 were the three hottest on record. The world is failing to curb carbon. With collective solutions failing, the people who can afford to buy private protections are doing what they can. There’s a run on air-conditioning. “Aircon stocks become next hot bet as Europe wilts,” headlined London’s Financial Times two weeks ago.

Going a step further, some of the people making the greatest........

© Brisbane Times