The UN warns that the impacts of climate change are increasing

At a time when the global public debate is monopolized by the new coronavirus, the UN and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have strived on Tuesday to try not to forget another great threat that also knows no borders: global warming. WMO has launched the final report on the state of the global climate in 2019, which confirms that the impacts and signs of climate change are increasing. “Global warming is accelerating,” concluded António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, during the presentation of the report in New York. “2019 was a record year,” added Petteri Taalas, WMO Chief Executive Officer.

The impact of the coronavirus has flown over the press conference in which the report has been presented. Comparisons have been inevitable. Guterres has not downplayed the epidemic and has considered that, like climate change, it is a problem with serious consequences. But he has stressed that the expected coronavirus will have a limited impact over time, while the effects of climate change are constant and for decades. Guterres has called on countries not to be distracted in the fight against warming and inequality.

Last year, the report confirms, was the second with the warmest global average temperature since there are reliable records, which start in 1880. The problem is that 2019 was not an exception, but the confirmation that the global climate crisis has accelerated: the last five years have been the warmest ever recorded, the same has happened with the last decade (2010-2019), which has had the highest average temperature since those reliable measurements exist. In addition, this process is not slowing down: this January 2020 has been the warmest January ever recorded.

WMO emphasizes the relationship between this constant increase in temperature and the growth of greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans, which in a high percentage end up being concentrated in the atmosphere. “The increase in the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the main generator of climate change,” recalls the report presented on Tuesday.

This relationship between warming and greenhouse gases has been known for decades and governments know that they must reduce emissions in order to leave global warming within manageable limits (this was already established in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which dates from 1992). In 2015, when the Paris Agreement was signed, a global goal was set for the end of the century: that the average temperature increase from pre-industrial levels should remain below two degrees, and as far as possible below 1.5. “Currently, we are a long way from meeting the 1.5 degrees or 2 degree targets required by the Paris Agreement,” Guterres warned. In fact, according to the report, the temperature in 2019 was 1.1 degrees higher than the average of the period between 1850 and 1900, which is used as a reference.

Guterres has called on countries to increase ambition and to commit to reducing their emissions by 45% by 45% by 2030 at the next Climate Summit in Glasgow, UK, in November. By 2050, if the 1.5-degree target is to be met, those emissions must disappear. Guterres explained that, so far, 70 countries have committed to eliminate their emissions by 2050. But, as he lamented, those states only account for a quarter of all global emissions. For now, neither the U.S. nor China, the world’s top two emitters, have been willing to set that goal.

Deaths from heat and dengue

The increase in average temperatures is only one of the indicators of climate change. The WMO report reviews other indices that help measure the impact of warming and that review also confirms the planet’s climate crisis. For example, the “continued decline” of Arctic ice, which is at historic lows. The same is happening with the Greenland ice sheet or with glaciers, which are in retreat.

Not all greenhouse gases end up accumulating in the atmosphere. It is estimated that between 2009 and 2018 the oceans have absorbed 23% of the carbon dioxide emitted annually. And this has led to a process of ocean acidification that is damaging marine biodiversity. In addition, the oceans also capture excess heat from the planetary system, thereby increasing heat. According to the WMO, that heat accumulation also reached record levels in 2019, which is contributing to a massive mortality of corals.

The WMO report also looks at extreme weather events, such as droughts or floods also linked to climate change, and the impacts they are having on human health, food security or migration. For example, record temperatures recorded in Australia, India, Japan and Europe adversely affected health and well-being, the report explains. In Japan, a strong heat wave in 2019 was behind 100 deaths and another 18,000 hospitalizations. In France, WMO puts the number of deaths recorded during this summer’s heat waves at 1,462.

The report also points to the expansion of the mosquito species that transmit dengue thanks to the change in climatic conditions. And he warns that the world also experienced a large increase in cases of dengue, whose incidence has increased “dramatically” in recent decades hand in hand with global warming.

Food security deteriorated “markedly in 2019 in some countries of the Horn of Africa due to climate extremes, migration, conflict and violence,” the WMO said. The report puts the number of people exposed to severe food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan last year.

Wildfires, on the other hand, were above average in 2019 in unusual regions, such as Siberia and Alaska. In the case of the Amazon region of Brazil, the WMO points out that the fires were only slightly above the average of the last ten years; but total fire activity in South America was the highest since 2010, with special incidence in Bolivia and Venezuela.

A separate chapter in the World Meteorological Organization’s report deserves Australia, which experienced conditions in 2019 – with great droughts and extreme heat – that have led to an “exceptionally prolonged and severe fire season” that claimed 33 lives and approximately seven million hectares burned in New South Wales and Victoria.

Spain, drought and waterspouts

The case of Spain appears twice outlined in the WMO report on climate in 2019. On the one hand, this international organization highlights how dry it was last winter and highlights that in Spain the rainfall between January and August was 23% lower than normal.

The other meteorological extreme that hit Spain, and which is reflected in the WMO report, is that of storms during the autumn of last year. This organization highlights the virulence of the extreme rains and winds in mid-September, mainly in Alicante and Murcia.

Source: The Country