TEHRAN - Inaction or slow action to fight climate change has started to take its toll. It is getting worse every year. 

The planet Earth is mostly being taken hostage by companies feeding on fossil fuels, officials who have invested in such fuels or need the support of such companies or shareholders for winning votes, officials who stupidly deny global warming, the public’s negligence and unawareness about the disastrous effects of climate change, and certain other reasons.

Today, nobody can deny climate change or argue that global warming is not the result of human activity.  On July 28, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said climate denialism was “the worst of fuels”.

 It is no exaggeration that global warming is more alarming than ideologically-driven terrorism or even a nuclear war.

Now wildfires in certain European countries, including France, Spain and Portugal, have taken the attention of Europeans and people in other parts of the world, but climate-induced droughts have greatly rattled the people and officials in certain parts of the world.

Rivers, lakes, and fountains have either dried up or are drying up, and underground waters have either been depleted or are being depleted in certain Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries such as Iran and Afghanistan.

Low precipitation and drought have displaced or impoverished hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people just in Iran. Add to these human-caused global warming the rising water consumption and mismanagement.

Miserably, the wars are adding fuel to the fire of global warming.  The U.S.-Iran war in the Persian Gulf region and the Ukraine-Russia war in Eastern Europe are now speeding up the pace of climate change. Just on July 29, the drone attack on Russia’s Wildberries caused a huge cloud of smoke in the air, which was like a gunshot in the heart of nature.

Imagine how much gas emissions have been produced in the 40-day war against Iran by the U.S. and Israel.

A new study led by Queen Mary University of London estimates that Israel’s war on Gaza has generated around 33 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO?e).

Now, the United States, as a technologically advanced country, instead of focusing on developing clean technologies and industries, its current president, Donald Trump, is rolling back what his predecessor Joe Biden did; and just a few days ago, Germany announced that it plans to delay its climate neutrality from 2045 to 2050.

Unfortunately, our Mother Earth has become a casualty of personal and corporate interests, political demagoguery, geostrategic and geopolitical rivalries, wars fueled by the military-industrial complex, willful ignorance, and the insatiable greed of certain countries.