The head of the United Nations has called on countries to take action to address the effects of “crippling heat”, as the world experiences record-high temperatures that have put vulnerable communities at risk.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Antonio Guterres said billions of people around the globe are experiencing “an extreme heat epidemic” fuelled by climate change.
“Extreme heat is increasingly tearing through economies, widening inequalities, undermining the Sustainable Development Goals, and killing people,” the UN secretary-general said.
“We know what is driving it: fossil fuel-charged, human-induced climate change. And we know it’s going to get worse; extreme heat is the new abnormal.”
Guterres’s warning comes a day after the European Union’s climate monitor said the world had experienced its hottest day on record this week.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Wednesday that the global average surface air temperature on July 22 rose to 17.15 degrees Celsius (62.9 degrees Fahrenheit) – or 0.06 degrees Celsius higher than the record set just a day earlier.
Every month since June 2023 has now ranked as the planet’s warmest since records began in 1940, compared with the corresponding month in previous years, according to C3S.
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