Amid new daily heat records worldwide, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned Thursday that the Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, killing nearly half a million people a year, and he blamed fossil fuels for driving global warming. Guterres also issued a global call to action focused on caring for the most vulnerable exposed to extreme heat.
“If there is one thing that unites our divided world, it’s that we’re all increasingly feeling the heat. Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere,” the Secretary-General told reporters in New York, noting that extreme temperatures are no longer a one-day, one-week or one-month phenomenon.
“Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic — wilting under increasingly deadly heat waves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world. That’s 122 degrees Fahrenheit. And halfway to boiling,” he said.
Sunday was the Earth's hottest day on record, only to have the record broken the next day. Temperatures have been rising steadily, with scientists declaring the last 13 consecutive months to be heat record-breakers. Urban areas are heating up at twice the global average.
And while the death toll is often underreported, thousands of deaths have already been recorded this year in the world's most affected countries. The extreme heat has also had a major impact on agriculture, damaging crops and reducing yields.
While most media attention focuses on daily maximum temperatures, it is nighttime temperatures that pose the greatest health risks, especially for vulnerable groups. Elevated daily minimum temperatures are particularly dangerous to human health because the body cannot recover from hot days.
Heat waves have killed scores of people in India and Africa's Sahel region this year. Last month, extreme heat killed at least 1,300 Muslim pilgrims in Saudi Arabia. This month, Europe, the United States, and Asia have also experienced exceptional heat.
And the scorching heat comes against a backdrop of steadily rising temperatures. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have documented a rapid increase in the scale, intensity, frequency and duration of extreme heat events.
Guterres said the World Health Organization (WHO) and the WMO estimate that improvements to heat health warning systems in 57 countries could save nearly 100,000 lives a year.
The UN chief has repeatedly called on greenhouse gas emitters to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius - a goal many fear is slipping away. He said the expansion of fossil fuels and new coal plants are obstacles to meeting that goal.
“I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” he said. “In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future.”
He urged world leaders to phase out fossil fuels quickly and fairly, and to stop new coal projects.
“The G20 must shift fossil fuel subsidies to renewables and support vulnerable countries and communities,” he said of the world’s largest economies.
And he called for more funding for climate adaptation and mitigation from the richest countries - the biggest emitters - to help the poorest, most vulnerable nations that have contributed the least to global warming.
Guterres said he is launching a global call to action focused on caring for the most vulnerable, including protecting workers exposed to extreme heat.
“Those most at risk when the mercury soars include the urban poor. Pregnant women. People with disabilities. Older people. The very young, the sick, the displaced, and the impoverished – who often live in substandard housing without access to cooling,” he said.
Heat-related deaths among people over the age of 65 have increased by about 85 percent in 20 years. According to UNICEF, nearly 25 percent of all children are now exposed to frequent heat waves. By 2050, that number could rise to nearly 100 percent. And the number of urban poor living in extreme heat could increase by 700 percent
“A new report from the International Labor Organization — being released today — warns that over 70 percent of the global workforce — 2.4 billion people — are now at high risk of extreme heat,” he said.
In Asia and the Pacific, three out of four workers are now exposed to extreme heat. More than eight out of ten in the Arab world, and more than nine out of ten in Africa. Meanwhile, Europe and Central Asia have the fastest growing number of workers exposed to excessive heat.
In addition to the rights and health of individual workers, extreme heat also has significant economic impacts.
“And as daily temperatures rise above 34°C – or 93.2°F – labor productivity drops by 50 percent. Heat stress at work is projected to cost the global economy $2.4 trillion by 2030. Up from $280 billion in the mid-1990s,” Guterres said, adding measures need to be taken to “heat proof” critical sectors of the global economy, like farming and construction work.
The UN chief warned that extreme heat widens social inequalities, undermines development, intensifies food insecurity and pushes people deeper into poverty, but he also recalled many other consequences of climate change.
"Today, our focus is on the impact of extreme heat. But let’s not forget that there are many other devastating symptoms of the climate crisis: Ever-more fierce hurricanes. Floods. Droughts. Wildfires. Rising sea levels. The list goes on," he said.
“To tackle all these symptoms, we need to fight the disease. The disease is the madness of incinerating our only home. The disease is the addiction to fossil fuels. The disease is climate inaction. Leaders across the board must wake up and step up,” Guterres added.
Extreme heat events are among the deadliest types of weather patterns. Climate change is making heat waves more extreme.
Experts predict that the effects of climate change will intensify in the coming years, leading to more extreme weather events that will also exacerbate ongoing crises, especially in protracted complex emergencies related to armed conflict, hunger, poverty and economic crises. It is the world's most vulnerable people who are most at risk from the climate crisis, even though they have done the least to cause it.
But the climate crisis is not only exacerbating existing humanitarian emergencies. It is closely linked to an increase in humanitarian crises affecting many millions of people around the world and posing immense challenges to the world. Devastating storms, floods, historic droughts and extreme heat are killing people, destroying livelihoods, causing hunger crises and spreading disease.
One of the most tragic consequences of the climate emergency is the forced displacement and migration of people. Environmental changes such as drought, loss of agricultural land or rising sea levels are forcing people to leave their homes. This leads to internal displacement, cross-border displacement, or mass migration.
"Extreme heat is having an extreme impact on people and planet. The world must rise to the challenge of rising temperatures," Guterres said.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: Secretary-General's press conference - on Extreme Heat, UN Secretary-General, transcript, published July 25, 2024
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2024-07-25/secretary-generals-press-conference-extreme-heat