Global warming has ended and the era of “global boiling” has arrived, the UN secretary-general has said.
After scientists announced that this July is on track to be the hottest month ever recorded – and possibly the hottest in the last 120,000 years – Antonio Guterres said: “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning.”
He added: “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived. The air is unbreathable.
“The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable.”
Mr Guterres said: “For vast parts of North America, Asia, Africa and Europe – it is a cruel summer. For the entire planet, it is a disaster. And for scientists, it is unequivocal – humans are to blame.
“All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is the speed of the change.”
He added: “It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only with dramatic, immediate climate action.”
This month will be the hottest “by a significant margin”, even looking at just the first three weeks of data, the World Meteorological Organisation and the EU’s Earth observation program, Copernicus, found.
July 6 was the hottest day ever recorded, with a global average temperature of 17.08C (62.7F). Some 21 of the 30 hottest days ever recorded have taken place this month, with southern Europe battling a heatwave.
Dr Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist from Leipzig University who ran a separate re-analysis of the data, said global temperatures last hit this high 120,000 years ago and there is a “decent chance” of this July being the hottest month on Earth since then.
Earlier this week, Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said last year’s hot, dry summer – which saw 40C temperatures recorded in the UK for the first time ever – was a “sign of things to come” for Britain’s climate.
The first 23 days of July reached so far above the previous monthly all-time high surface air temperature – an average of 16.95C compared with 16.63C in July 2019 – that scientists are “virtually certain” of seeing the global record broken this year.