The effects of climate change are becoming seriously chaotic!
These are the sentiments of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres at the launch of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Provisional State of the Global Climate.
“The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle of climate chaos,” Guterres declared, saying that action must start with spreading the awareness of the situation at this year’s COP27 in Egypt.
The report was released this past Sunday and showed a more than significant increase in global heat fueled by rising greenhouse gas concentrations.
In fact, the statistics showed that the past 8 years were the warmest on record.
He further explained that change is occurring with “catastrophic speed – devastating lives and livelihoods on every continent,”
Even before the release of the report, it was evident that each heatwave is worse than the last one, and even more life-threatening. England and Wales reported at least 3,271 heat related deaths this year, which averages at about 82 excess deaths per day; 6.2% higher than the five-year average.
Several record-breaking storms devastated the Caribbean and the Americas over the past five years, causing irreversible damages and loss of life.
In addition to the rising heat, sea levels are rising at twice the speed of the 1990s – posing an existential threat to low-lying island states and threatening billions of people in coastal regions. Glaciers are melting away at alarming speeds, jeopardizing water security for entire continents.
“People and communities everywhere must be protected from the immediate and ever-growing risks of the climate emergency….” he expressed. “We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action — ambitious, credible climate action. COP27 must be the place – and now must be the time.”
