New York, April 19 – In addition to the pandemic that has upended most countries, the world is facing an “anthropogenic climate change caused by human activities, human decisions and human folly,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said following the publication of a weather report describing 2020 as an unprecedented year of extreme weather and climate disasters.

“This is an extremely alarming report,” Guterres said of the just published The World Meteorological Organization State of the Global Climate 2020 Report. “It needs to be read by all leaders and decision-makers in the world. 2020 was an unprecedented year for people and the planet. It was dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

He said data in the report showed an alarming rise of temperatures of 1.2 degrees Celsius that are hotter than pre-industrial times and getting close to the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit set by the scientific community. 

The climate disasters reported by WMO included temperatures at Verkhoyansk in Russia that reached 38 degrees Celsius in June 2020, which was the highest recorded temperature anywhere north of the Arctic Circle; major greenhouse gases that continued to climb and carbon dioxide concentrations that rose extremely high — 410.5 parts per million, which is a 148 per cent increase above pre-industrial levels. 

The report said the number of tropical cyclones globally was above average in 2020 with 98 named tropical storms and in Brazil the drought caused serious wildfires in the Pantanal wetlands. 

In the Arctic, it said the annual minimum sea-ice extent in September 2020 was the second lowest on record and in the Greenland ice sheet lost 152 billion metric tons of ice from September 2019 to August 2020.  

In the United States the drought triggered the largest wildfires ever recorded in California and Colorado. 

“This must be the year for action,” Guterres said.

Guterres called for action in 2021 in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change including reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reaching net zero emissions by 2050. But he said, “We are way off track.” 

He called for a number of “concrete advances” before the Conferences of Parties known as COP26 in Glasgow in November, including for countries to commit to a net zero carbon emissions and for them to submit to Nationally Determine Contributions (NDC) to the 2015 Paris Agreement for the next 10 years. The NDCs are climate plans to adopted by countries that have signed up with that agreement.

The Paris Agreement called for countries to renew their NDCs every five years, which was supposed to happen in 2020 for the first time. But the pandemic cancelled or postponed many international gatherings in 2020, including the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), in Glasgow, which was pushed back to November 2021.

Guterres asked developed countries to deliver on climate finance for the developing world, particularly the promise of $100 billion dollars a year and subsidies to polluting fossil fuels must be shifted to renewable energy. 

Other calls aim at developed countries to lead in phasing out coal by 2030 in OECD countries and by 2040 elsewhere, and for all financial institutions, public and private, to ensure that they fund sustainable and resilient development for all and move away from a grey and inequitable economy.  

In Washington, President Joe Biden is convening a virtual climate summit on April 22 – Earth Day – and has invited up to 40 government leaders to attend in an effort to show the world that the US is leading the fight against climate change.

Biden is expected to announce more ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse emissions, which is the main target of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The White House said Biden’s virtual summit aims at prodding countries to make stronger commitments of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and to keep the 1.5-degree goal which are main demands under the Paris Agreement.

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