UN urges swift action to avoid climate catastrophe

NEW YORK: Record heat waves, deadly flooding and extreme weather reflect an ever-warming planet poised to soon breach safe temperature limits, according to a UN report, but doubling down on climate action now could avoid a climate catastrophe.

The scorching heat in the northern hemisphere in recent months, raging wildfires and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.

He recalled that the historic 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw world leaders pledge to keep temperature rise to the 1.5°C limit above pre-industrial levels, which scientists say is critical to avoiding the worst climate devastation.

Indeed, the world is failing to keep that promise, according to the new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

“The fight for 1.5 degrees is the fight for humanity,” he said. “We are set to breach the 1.5°C limit within the next few years.”

There are no good outcomes if temperatures remain above 1.5°C consistently, warned UNEP chief Inger Andersen.

“Across the globe, extreme heatwaves are already proving that climate impacts will strike faster, hit harder, and last longer, costing more lives and causing deeper disruption,” she said.

“Now is the time we must double down on climate action. We can and must get on the right path. By cutting greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening resilience and adaptation and ensuring exceedance of 1.5°C is as small and short as possible.”

The UN chief agreed. “Every fraction of a degree will cost lives, destroy livelihoods, deepen inequality and push ecosystems closer to irreversible damage,” the Secretary-General said. “Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe.”

However, swift climate action can bring the world back from the brink, Guterres said.

“We can still bring warming back below 1.5°C by the end of the century,” he said. “We must make the overshoot as small and short as possible, limiting how high temperatures rise and how long they remain above 1.5.

“The science is clear,” Guterres said. “The solutions are at hand, and the world has never been better equipped to deploy them. Now is the time to raise ambition and accelerate action.”