António Guterres warns against “extreme heat epidemic” after the three hottest days on the planet

Last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were the three warmest days on record on the planet so far, according to provisional data from the European Commission’s Copernicus service. Despite the fact that The boya natural and cyclical phenomenon that causes global temperatures to rise, has now receded, and the thermometer continues to soar on Earth. The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, referred to this new record on Thursday in an appearance in New York to warn that “billions of people face an epidemic of extreme heat” having to live even above 50 degrees Celsius.

“This has been a week of unprecedented heat,” Guterres stressed. But he added: “Extreme temperatures are no longer a one-day, one-week or one-month phenomenon.” In fact, until this week, to find the previous record for the hottest day on average on the planet, all you had to do was go back to July 2022. Guterres also recalled that last June was the warmest June ever recorded, also according to Copernicus data. And this is not an isolated situation: exactly the same thing has happened for the past 13 consecutive months.

“What is really astonishing is the huge difference between the temperature of the last 13 months and previous temperature records,” Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said on Monday. “We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate continues to warm, we are likely to see new records in the coming months and years.”

“The Earth is getting hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere,” the UN Secretary-General added on Thursday. In his speech, he stressed that heat “kills almost half a million people a year, about 30 times more than tropical cyclones.”

Although he acknowledged that heat waves have always occurred, he highlighted how the different reports from the World Meteorological Organization and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) indicate that there is a “rapid increase in the scale, intensity, frequency and duration of extreme heat events.”

“Extreme heat is increasingly ravaging economies, widening inequalities, undermining the Sustainable Development Goals and killing people.” Guterres called for a fight against this “disease,” referring to climate change triggered by humans, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels. “The disease is addiction to fossil fuels,” he lamented. “The disease is climate inaction,” he stressed.

You can follow Climate and Environment in Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter