World in 'wrong direction' as climate impacts worsen: UN
Humanity is "going in the wrong direction" on climate change due to its addiction to fossil fuels, the UN said Tuesday in an assessment showing that planet-warming emissions are higher than before the pandemic.
The UN's World Meteorological Organization and its Environment Programme warned catastrophes will become commonplace should the world economy fail to decarbonise in line with what science says is needed to prevent the worst impacts of global heating.
They pointed to Pakistan's monumental floods and China's crop-withering heatwave this year as examples of what to expect.
"Floods, droughts, heatwaves, extreme storms and wildfires are going from bad to worse, breaking records with alarming frequency," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The UN warned last month that the drought gripping the Horn of Africa and threatening millions with acute food shortages was now likely to extend into a fifth year.
"There is nothing natural about the new scale of these disasters. They are the price of humanity's fossil fuel addiction," said Guterres.
The UN's United in Science report underscores how, nearly three years since Covid-19 handed governments a unique opportunity to reassess how to power their economies, countries are ploughing ahead with pollution as normal.
It found that after an unprecedented 5.4 percent fall in emissions in 2020 due to lockdowns and travel restrictions, preliminary data from January-May this year shows global CO2 emissions are 1.2 percent higher than before Covid-19.
This is largely down to large year-on-year increases in the United States, India, and most European countries, the assessment found.
"The science is unequivocal: we are going in the wrong direction," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
"Greenhouse gas concentrations are continuing to rise, reaching new record highs. Fossil fuel emission rates are now above pre-pandemic levels. The past seven years were the warmest on record."
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