UN Secretary-General labels humanity as “the meteor” in fiery climate speech

Climate as we know it may be in the rearview mirror and there is very little time to change course before crossing a dangerous threshold for global warming.

This was the feeling expressed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, during fiery comments, which followed the new data released today by the World Meteorological Organization and the European Commission Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“Like the meteor that destroyed the dinosaurs, we are having an outsized impact. In the case of climate, we are not dinosaurs. We are the meteor”, said Guterres in the speech he made a delivery to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City — where dinosaur skeletons tower above visitors in the lobby — on World Environment Day today. “We are not just in danger. We are the danger. But we are also the solution,” he said.

Last month was officially the hottest May on record, marking 12 consecutive months as the hottest on record. We’ve seen this happen with record heatwaves across the world, and there’s not much relief in sight.

UN policymakers and climate scientists are focused on a key milestone: the point at which global average temperatures are consistently 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than they were before the Industrial Revolution. The most ambitious goal of the historic Paris agreement is to prevent the world from crossing this threshold. Otherwise, the effects of climate change will worsen sharply — overwhelming and potentially overcoming the world’s ability to adapt.

2023 was already the hottest year on record, but probably not for much longer. There is now an 80 percent probability that at least one of the next five years will be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). When the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, there was almost a 0% chance of this happening.

While a year of extreme heat will certainly take its toll, climate scientists are more concerned about the possibility of these temperatures becoming the new norm. The WMO says there is now about a 50 percent chance that average temperatures over the next five years will also be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than in the pre-industrial era. Last year, there was only a 32% chance of this happening.

The odds are stacked against us because greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels continue to rise. Scientists have calculated how much planet-warming carbon dioxide can still be released before the pollution is enough to push the world beyond permanent warming of 1.5 degrees. What carbon budget it has now fallen to 200 billion metric tons of pollution, Guterres said today. This is actually a small number considering that global carbon dioxide emissions reach about 40 billion metric tons per year.

With these numbers, we still have around five years of normal operation before the Paris target becomes out of reach. And while there is a lot of political wrangling over what it would take to avoid 1.5 degrees of warming, Guterres reminded people that there are real-world consequences.

“It’s not a goal. It’s a physical limit,” he said. “Every fraction of a degree of global warming counts. The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees could be the difference between extinction and the survival of some small island states and coastal communities.”

Compared with 1.5 degrees, 40,000 more people they could see their homes flooded with 2 degrees of heat. The proportion of the global population exposed to extreme heat waves at least once every five years jumps from 14 to 37 percent with just half a degree of global warming.

With a shrinking carbon budget, global CO2 emissions would now have to decline by 9% every year this decade to stop global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is a greater drop in pollution than that recorded worldwide in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic restricted economic activity and reduced CO2 emissions by more than 5 percent. Emissions would need to fall to zero by 2050.

Guterres, at least, still holds out hope that countries can change course with a sharp shift towards renewable energy. After all, onshore solar and wind farms are already the cheapest source of electricity for most of the world.

Investments in clean energy have nearly doubled over the past decade, reaching a record high last year. This progress needs to be accelerated, he insisted. Renewable energies represent 30% of the world’s electricity mix. But there are major inequalities in how this is being implemented, with just 15% of clean energy investments in emerging and developing economies outside of China. Less than 1% of new renewable energy capacity was installed in Africa last year.

There is also a lack of funding for adapting to the effects of climate change, building houses and cities that are more resistant to rising seas and temperatures. There is only about five cents of funding available for every dollar needed to adapt to extreme weather conditions, Guterres warned.

“If money makes the world go round, today’s unequal financial flows are making us spin towards disaster,” he said. “We cannot accept a future where the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles while the rest of humanity is buffeted by lethal weather conditions in uninhabitable lands.”