U.N. head says climate breakdown has begun as scorching September heat hits U.S.
Parts of U.S. scorched by September heat wave
United Nations — "Earth just had its hottest three months on record," the United Nations weather agency said Wednesday.
"The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting," warned U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement coinciding with the release of the latest data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) by the World Meteorological Organization.
"Our planet has just endured a season of simmering — the hottest summer on record. Climate breakdown has begun," Guterres said.
A firefighter runs as a wildfire intensifies in Evros, Greece, August 31, 2023. Ayhan Mehmet/Anadolu Agency/Getty
The WMO's Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas, issued an urgent assessment of the data, saying: "The northern hemisphere just had a summer of extremes — with repeated heatwaves fueling devastating wildfires, harming health, disrupting daily lives and wreaking a lasting toll on the environment."
Taalas said that in the southern hemisphere, meanwhile, the seasonal shrinkage of Antarctic Sea ice "was literally off the charts, and the global sea surface temperature was once again at a new record."
The WMO report, which includes the Copernicus data as well information from five other monitoring organizations around the world, showed it was the hottest August on record "by a large margin," according to the U.N. agency, both on land and in the global monthly average for sea surface temperatures.
The WMO cited the U.K.'s government's Met Office weather agency, which has warned there is "a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest on record."
Copernicus data already puts 2023 on track to be the hottest year on record overall. Right now it's tailing only 2016 in the temperature record books, but 2023 is far from over yet.
"Eight months into 2023, so far we are experiencing the second warmest year to date, only fractionally cooler than 2016, and August was estimated to be around 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels," Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said.
"We can still avoid the worst of climate chaos," said the U.N.'s Guterres, adding: "We don't have a moment to lose."
Hegemonic_Imposition on September 6th, 2023 at 17:34 UTC »
According to Oxfam, the richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world's population. In other words, just the top 1% of the wealthy managed to steal almost a quarter of the total required wealth to address climate change in just two years. Evidently, the rich could easily address climate change and not even break a sweat - and worse, they could have done it any time in the last 50 years. Studies have shown that just the top 10% of wealthy Americans are responsible for 40% of the world’s planet heating pollution. It’s also well understood that the top corporations in the world account for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The top 1% of the wealthy now own half the world’s wealth, yet average consumers are the ones being asked to make sacrifices? It makes absolutely no sense. Put properly in context, you quickly understand that the wealthy, both private and corporate, are responsible. Instead of addressing climate change they chose to actively undermine and suppress climate data to continue exploiting the world’s resources for personal wealth and they will live in infamy as the bloated, disgusting, selfish psychopaths that they are, forever on the wrong side of history.
Terrible_Weatherman on September 6th, 2023 at 15:39 UTC »
We have tried nothing and nothing worked
s3venteenDays on September 6th, 2023 at 14:00 UTC »
Spring blossom came one month early in South Eastern Australia. A pretty harbinger of doom - our Summer has a good chance of being horrific. I expect a lot of the bush to be on fire.