“The coronavirus is a disease that we hope will be temporary, with temporary impacts, but climate change has been there for many years and will continue for many decades, and it requires continued action .” This was expressed by the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, during the presentation of the latest report on the state of the world climate, published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The agency recalled that, although all necessary attention should be paid to the coronavirus epidemic and its impacts should not be underestimated, this global concern should not reduce efforts in the fight against climate change.
The WMO Secretary General, in turn, wanted to emphasize that, despite the unfortunate situation of the epidemic, climate change is much worse. ” The virus will have an economic impact in the short term, but the losses will be massive if we think about global warming . We are talking about a problem of greater magnitude, with consequences for the health of people and our societies much more serious,” he said. .
The UN has referred to different problems that plague the entire world and are a consequence of climate change: loss of crops in Central America, floods in Argentina and Uruguay, fires in Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela, hurricanes in the Caribbean … The global average temperature recorded in the year 2019 was 1.1 ° C above pre-industrial levels , and the average temperature of the oceans was the highest in records. Starting in the 1980s, each new decade has been warmer than all previous ones since 1850.
“The ocean’s heat is at a record level, with temperatures rising to the equivalent of five Hiroshima bombs per second. We count the cost in human lives and livelihoods as extreme droughts, wildfires, floods and storms take their deadly toll. We have no time to lose if we want to avoid a climate catastrophe, “said Guterres.
It affects health, food security, housing and the world economy
The consequences of climate change are ecological, social and economic and, furthermore, since the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase, its effects will be increasingly frequent and extreme.
“Many parts of the northern hemisphere have experienced an exceptionally mild winter. Smoke and pollutants from Australia’s devastating fires spread around the world, causing CO2 concentrations to spike. The temperature records in Antarctica were accompanied by episodes of large-scale melting of ice and the fracture of a glacier, events that will affect the rise in sea level ”, explained Talas. “This exposes the coastal areas and islands to a greater risk of flooding and can cause their low areas to be submerged by water.”
Deaths and diseases driven by climate change
The report highlights shocking data: in Japan, an intense heat wave caused more than 100 fatalities and 18,000 additional hospital admissions . In France, more than 20,000 emergency room visits for heat-related ailments were recorded between June and mid-September, and 1,462 deaths occurred during two major heat waves in affected regions.
Changes in climatic conditions are also facilitating the transmission of diseases that were previously limited to the tropics , and one of the most visible consequences is the increase in the global incidence of dengue: the risk of infection affects approximately half of the population. world population.
Climate change also threatens food security, which has deteriorated especially in some African countries with conflict situations and economic instability that add to the incidence of extreme weather events such as droughts and heat waves.
Hunger affects more than 22 million people
As of the end of 2019, an estimated 22.2 million people (6.7 million in Ethiopia, 3.1 million in Kenya, 2.1 million in Somalia, 4.5 million in South Sudan, and 5.8 million in Sudan) suffered from a high level of food shortages, a figure only slightly lower than that recorded during the severe and prolonged drought of 2016 and 2017.
And it adds up and goes on. 70,000 households in El Salvador affected by the lack of food and drinking water. More than six million internal displacements due to natural disasters. 50,000 families in Guatemala lost almost all of their crops. In short, the number of people affected by climate change is practically unattainable.
“We are currently a long way from meeting the Paris Agreement targets of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 or 2 ° C,” Guterres writes in the foreword to the report. The UN chief executive is pressing to reduce 45% of emissions in the next decade. “This is the only way to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C.”
Note: this article is an adaptation of the report published on the United Nations website on the presentation of the latest WMO report on the state of the world climate.
