His Excellency Minister for the Future 

Chapter one of the ‘cli-fi’ novel The Ministry for the Future (2020) by Kim Stanley Robinson tells the story of Frank May, an American NGO worker, who barely survives an extreme heatwave that kills millions of people in Uttar Pradesh, India. However, a recent heatwave that roasted large parts of the world makes the line between fiction and reality thinner than ever.

The whole novel follows a fictional subsidiary body, established under the 2015 Paris Agreement, whose mission is to act as an advocate for the world’s future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the rights of the present generation.

May is doing everything he can to save lives. But it’s not working. With every day that passes, without a drop in temperature or humidity, the electric grid eventually gives out, turning life into an inferno for everyone who lives in this north Indian state.

Rushing to the nearest lake with boiling water does not help and air-conditioning is ineffective. By the end of the heatwave, 20 million people are dead.

This fictional work explains realistically how high temperatures can kill. However, what makes it more terrifying is that this is a reality in many parts of the world.

Record temperatures across Europe last week claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Railway tracks buckled and fires raged across the continent. However, the final death toll will not be known for weeks. It is the second heatwave this summer following a hot, dry spring.

According to World Health Organisation, heatwaves are among the most dangerous natural hazards but rarely receive adequate attention because their death tolls and destruction are not always immediately obvious. 

From 1998-2017, more than 166,000 people died in heatwaves, including more than 70,000 who died during the 2003 heatwave in Europe, while between 2000 and 2016, the number of people exposed to heatwaves increased by around 125 million, WHO said. 

Heatwaves burden health and emergency services and increase strain on water, energy, and transport, resulting in power shortages and blackouts. Food and job security is under threat.

The long-term increase in temperatures can also have devastating effects on countries such as the UK, where infrastructure is built for cold weather. It can also affect worker productivity and education and may cause longer-term health issues.

Extreme temperature events around the globe that are increasing in frequency, duration, and magnitude are no longer the stuff of science fiction, whose authors might well offer solutions. However, not everyone will fancy living in underground colonies, or emigrating to other planets, or altering the earth’s orbit around the sun. Not only are they far-fetched and completely unaffordable, the last-mentioned will play havoc with your tomatoes in the greenhouse out the back.

All the more unfortunate, simple solutions like planting more trees and burning less fossil fuels are still in the realms of paper fiction.

But maybe by 2050, the Ministry for the Future will have one or two cards up its sleeve.