The drought in California, now in its fourth year and being called the worst in a millennium, needs to be tackled as part of a global effort to mitigate the effects of climate change. The state relies on winter snowfall on the mountains but warmer global temperatures has meant rain rather than snow, providing far less water; snowfall was just 12 per cent this winter, down from 28 per cent last year. The latest forecasts are for the situation to continue with higher temperatures and lower rainfall becoming the normal climate for California. A study by Stanford University published this month shows that the dry and warm conditions that lead to California’s severe droughts have occurred more frequently in the past twenty years than in the last century. While the state implements plans to cope with the drought amid concern that there is only a year’s water supply left, Amir AghaKouchak of the University of California says that this is not a situation that can be solved locally. He told The Guardian: “This is a global issue. A single policymaker or even all policymakers in California alone cannot really do much about global temperature. This requires unprecedented international efforts and a truly global will to address these issues.”
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