UN chief: Strengthening El Nino pushes world into ‘uncharted territory’
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Friday that a strengthening El Nino, potentially breaking all records, is ‘adding fuel to a planet already on fire’ and pushing the world into ‘uncharted territory’, while urging urgent action on four fronts, including ending fossil fuel use.
The UN secretary-general has warned that a strengthening El Nino, which could shatter all-time records, is “adding fuel to a planet already on fire” and pushing the world into “uncharted territory”. Speaking on Friday, António Guterres recalled that two months ago he had warned that El Nino was arriving on the doorstep; now, he said, it is inside the house and turning up the heat.
El Nino is a weather pattern that warms sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, triggering worldwide changes in winds, atmospheric pressure and rainfall patterns while pushing overall global temperatures higher. Human-caused climate change can amplify El Nino’s impacts because a warmer ocean and atmosphere increase the availability of energy and moisture for extreme weather events such as heat waves and heavy rainfall.
Guterres noted that the world has already endured a summer of extremes, including record-shattering heat domes, apocalyptic wildfires in Spain, France and beyond, and thousands of lives lost in the scorching conditions. According to the latest science, however, this was only a warm-up act.
Pacific waters driving El Nino have never been this warm this early, he said, citing a new forecast by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that sea-surface temperatures now average 3C (5.4F) above normal. The WMO outlook expects nearly every land mass on Earth to be hotter than usual through October, which risks shattering every seasonal record and driving even more severe effects worldwide.
The risks go beyond heat alone. India’s monsoon is running well below average, while hotter and drier conditions are forecast from Central America and the Caribbean to parts of South America, South Asia, the Southwest Pacific, Europe and Africa.
Guterres outlined action required on four fronts. First, protect people from heat with city- and country-wide heat plans and early warning systems, including expanded access to sustainable cooling. Second, make work safer by having governments set heat standards so vulnerable workers, for example in the garment industry, are not risking their lives. Third, build protection from extreme heat into the design of cities, homes, schools and hospitals, and factor it into plans and budgets. Fourth and most fundamentally, “the world must stop fueling the crisis”, said Guterres, and roll back the fossil fuels driving planet-wide heating, rather than treating each disaster as an isolated tragedy.
