United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday that humanity is suffering from an “extreme heat pandemic”, and called for action to limit the impacts of heat waves intensified by climate change.
“Billions of people are facing a severe heat pandemic – temperatures have reached above 50 degrees Celsius around the world and they are sweltering in increasingly deadly heat waves,” he said. “It’s 122 degrees Fahrenheit. And halfway to boiling.”
According to the European Copernicus Network, 21, 22 and 23 July were the three hottest days ever recorded worldwide, with an absolute record of 17.16 °C (62.9 °F) on 22 July.
Guterres reiterated the call for humanity to fight its “addiction” to fossil fuels.
“Today our focus is on the impacts of extreme heat. But we must not forget that there are many other devastating symptoms of the climate crisis: more intense storms. Flooding. Droughts. Wildfires. Rising sea levels. And the list is long,” he said.
“To combat all these symptoms, we have to fight the disease. And the disease is the madness of burning down our only home. The disease is fossil fuel addiction. The disease is climate inaction,” he said, specifically calling on the G20 countries to take action.
Although 2023 was the hottest year on record, and 2024 could set a new record, temperatures above 40C (104F) are still common.
In the space of a year, temperatures have exceeded the 50 °C mark in at least 10 locations, ranging from Death Valley in the United States (53.9 °C on 7 July) to Agadir in Morocco, as well as China and India.
Extreme heat, which is often less visible than other devastating impacts of climate change such as hurricanes or floods, is nevertheless more deadly.
This “silent killer” was responsible for around 489,000 deaths per year between 2000 and 2019, while cyclones cause 16,000 deaths per year, according to a UN “Call to Action” document published on Thursday.
Workers’ situation exposed
Extremely high temperatures also have an economic impact, with the United Nations estimating that economic losses from workplace heat stress will reach $2.4 trillion by 2030.
More than 70 percent of workers were exposed to extreme heat in 2020, up 8.8 percent from 2000, according to an International Labour Organisation report published on Thursday.
“The good news is that we can save lives and limit its impact,” Guterres said on Thursday.
The United Nations has called on the global community to act first to protect the “most vulnerable” – including young children, the elderly and humanity’s poorest.
In this context, early warning systems should include alerting people about the arrival of extreme heat, heat waves and providing information about precautions to be taken, the document says.
The call to action also recommends “increasing equitable access to and scale-up of low-carbon cooling.”
This will include investing in passive cooling systems – including climate-sensitive urban design measures, reflective surfaces and natural cooling systems – and phasing out climate-warming gases that are used in many cooling systems.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
