Heatwaves, wild fires and floods have been sweeping across the UK, USA, Italy, Spain, France, Albania, Syria, China, Australia, South Sudan and many other countries.

And yet people in democracies have been voting for politicians who say they will roll back policies to reduce global warming or even deny climate science is true. A typical example is Donald Trump.

In his first term Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement. Early in his second term he started a process that will repeat this lunacy while at the same time backing fossil fuels and obstructing renewables. As Climate Home News reports:

His administration has also crippled international climate finance by cutting aid and saying it will not deliver on pledges to climate funds, financed major fossil fuel projects abroad and undermined environmental treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

And while British voters believe that climate climate at least partly responsible for heatwaves, according to the Guardian the research group More in Common has run focus groups on climate action which found the share of people concerned about climate change has fallen over the past year, dipping from 68% to 60%. Support for the UK’s target to hit net zero emissions by 2050 fell even further, plunging from 62% to 46%.

The Guardian reports More in Common analyst Ed Hodgson as saying:

The issue is really that there are so many other concerns now. Three years ago you’d have the cost of living first, then the National Health Service, and then immigration and climate – those two would compete for third place. Now, when we do those polls, climate is near the bottom of the list.

And Trump is not alone. In Italy the Lega party MP Claudio Borghi claims correctly that climate change has always existed but then goes on to say that the causes are anything but clear, and “the solutions are contrary to what … is correct”.

In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland co-chair Alice Weidel shared a social media post from a climate sceptic that compared the heat on a specific day to slightly hotter temperatures on the same day in 1952, as the country was “clearing away the rubble of war”. The post took a swipe at the World Economic Forum, the German public broadcaster and the Green party.

The biggest political row over the heat erupted in France, where the far right National Rally tried to halt new wind and solar projects calling instead for a major air conditioning plan. The interior minister, conservative Bruno Retailleau, called to stop support for renewable energy and expand France’s nuclear energy sector.

In the UK, Greenpeace calls the Reform party manifesto a “contract with the polluters” and says it “proposes to rip up nature protection [and] roll back on climate action”. Greenpeace goes on: “Given they are bankrolled by fossil fuel interests, polluting industries and climate deniers we should not be surprised about their disdain for action on climate and nature and passion for fracking”.

So if heatwaves and floods don’t make people take action to slow down global warming and hopefully stop it altogether – WHAT WILL and what can we do to make sure they do?

First we need to understand why people are voting for these politicians who deny global warming or actually implement policies to increase it, such as Trump. Many people vote for them because they are motivated by their need to increase their income and these politicians offer it. Stopping climate change is of less importance for these voters.

In addition people know that taking action will actually cost money. But they are not aware that if we don’t take action now then the cost will be far higher in future.

So one thing we can do is to campaign against and vote against these climate change promoting politicians and their parties.

Secondly we all need to make changes in our daily lives that will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. You can find lots of ideas for things we can do on our sister website FixTheWorld.

Thirdly we can talk about climate change to our friends and neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances. What do they think about it and are they doing anything to help reverse it?

Fourthly if we are really worried about the future (which we should be) then we can take some sort of action such as joining an environmental group or a political party which plans to take action, writing to politicians letting them know how we feel and by raising money for groups taking action.

But one thing is clear: doing nothing is not an option if we want to prevent catastrophic change to our way of life in the very near future.