“The excellent news is that we are able to save lives and we are able to restrict its influence,” UN chief mentioned. (File)
United Nations:
Humanity is affected by an “excessive warmth epidemic,” UN Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres warned Thursday, calling for motion to restrict the impacts of warmth waves intensified by local weather change.
“Billions of persons are going through an excessive warmth epidemic — wilting below more and more lethal warmth waves, with temperatures topping 50 levels Celsius all over the world,” he mentioned. “That is 122 levels Fahrenheit. And midway to boiling.”
Based on the European Copernicus community, July 21, 22 and 23 had been the three hottest days ever recorded worldwide, with July 22 holding absolutely the report of 17.16 levels Celsius (62.9 levels Fahrenheit).
Guterres repeated his name for humanity to battle its “dependancy” to fossil fuels.
“At the moment, our focus is on the influence of utmost warmth. However let’s not neglect that there are lots of different devastating signs of the local weather disaster: ever-more fierce hurricanes. Floods. Droughts. Wildfires. Rising sea ranges. And the checklist goes on,” he mentioned.
“To sort out all these signs, we have to battle the illness. And the illness is the insanity of incinerating our solely house. The illness is the dependancy to fossil fuels. The illness is local weather inaction,” he confused, calling specifically on G20 nations to take motion.
Whereas 2023 was the most well liked 12 months on report, and 2024 may set a brand new report, temperatures nicely above 40C (104F) are more and more frequent.
Within the area of a 12 months, the 50C threshold has even been exceeded in not less than 10 locations, from Demise Valley in the USA (53.9C on July 7) to Agadir in Morocco, and likewise in China and India.
The extreme warmth, typically much less seen than different devastating impacts of local weather change resembling storms or floods, is nonetheless extra lethal.
This “silent killer” is liable for round 489,000 deaths per 12 months between 2000 and 2019, in contrast with 16,000 deaths per 12 months from cyclones, in response to the UN’s “Name to Motion” doc printed on Thursday.
Staff uncovered
Extraordinarily excessive temperatures even have an financial influence, with the UN estimating financial losses from warmth stress at work will attain $2.4 trillion in 2030.
Based on a report by the Worldwide Labor Group printed on Thursday, greater than 70 % of staff had been uncovered to extreme warmth in 2020, 8.8 % greater than in 2000.
“The excellent news is that we are able to save lives and we are able to restrict its influence,” Guterres mentioned Thursday.
The UN has referred to as for the world group to first act to guard “essentially the most susceptible” — together with younger kids, the aged and likewise humanity’s poorest.
On this context, early warning programs ought to embrace excessive warmth, warning populations of the arrival of warmth waves and informing them of the precautions to take, the doc says.
The decision to motion additionally recommends an “enhance (to) equitable entry to and scale up (of) low-carbon cooling.”
This might contain investing in passive cooling programs — which embrace climate-sensitive city design measures, reflective surfaces and pure cooling programs — and the phase-out of climate-warming gases which can be utilized in many cooling programs.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)