At the opening of the UN climate conference in Baku, members of the UN organization were keen to point out that the Paris climate objectives were in great danger.
The ambitions of the Paris agreement are “in great danger”, the UN warned this Monday, at the opening of the UN climate conference in Baku (COP29), with the year 2024 almost guaranteed to become the hottest year on record.
The years 2015-2024 will also form the hottest decade ever measured, according to this report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a UN agency, which combines six major international databases. “It’s a new SOS for the planet”, “a red alert”, launched the Secretary General of the WMO, Celeste Saulo, during a press briefing in Baku.
“A taste of the future”
“The record rainfall and floods, rapid intensification of tropical cyclones, deadly heat, relentless drought and catastrophic fires that we have seen in different parts of the world this year are unfortunately our new reality and a taste of the future », Underlined Celeste Saulo in a press release.
The European Copernicus service, one of the WMO's sources, has already calculated the global average temperatures for the month of October, so hot that it is almost certain that 2024 will beat the annual record set only last year. Over the period January-September, according to data collected by the WMO, the average air temperature on the earth's surface was 1.54°C higher than the reference period, 1850-1900.
The Paris Agreement, adopted by countries around the world in 2015, aims to contain global warming to 2°C, and to continue efforts to contain it to 1.5°C. Has this last, more ambitious objective now been missed? No, according to the WMO, because for warming to be considered stabilized at this level, we must not look at years separately, but take an average over 20 years (with this rule, we are at 1.3°C ).
“Climate change is happening almost daily before our eyes”
“It is important to emphasize that this does not mean that we have failed to achieve the objective of the Paris agreement,” argues Celeste Saulo. But “we must act as quickly as possible”, underlines Celeste Saulo in Baku, insisting that the world must “not abandon the limit of 1.5”.
“Global temperature anomalies recorded on daily, monthly and annual scales are subject to significant variations, in part due to natural phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña. They should not be put on the same footing as the long-term temperature objective set in the Paris Agreement,” explains the head of the WMO.
But, she adds, “every fraction of a degree of warming counts.” Furthermore, “temperatures are only part of the picture. Climate change is happening almost daily before our eyes in the form of extreme weather phenomena,” recalls the manager.
“The incredible amount of rain that fell in Spain was a wake-up call about how much extra water a warmer atmosphere can hold,” she warns. These devastating weather events are “unfortunately our new reality” and they are “a taste of our future.”
