(Bloomberg) -- Days after the world experienced its two hottest days on record, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced a new “global call to action” to help keep people safe from scorching temperatures.
“If there is one thing that unites our divided world, it’s that we’re all increasingly feeling the heat,” Guterres said on Thursday in New York, pointing to how scientists have clearly documented “a rapid rise in the scale, intensity, frequency and duration of extreme-heat events” due to human-induced climate change.
The UN is asking member states to focus on four key areas. The first is increasing direct care to people who are more vulnerable to extreme heat. There are many groups whose bodies can’t easily adjust to high temperatures, including infants and young children, pregnant people, older people (generally aged 65+) and those with certain chronic health issues or who are taking certain medicines. Other groups of people can’t easily escape the heat in their daily lives, including athletes, the homeless, low-income families without access to air conditioning and outdoor workers.
Relatedly, the second focus is ramping up heat protections for workers. Over 70% of the global workforce is estimated already to be at high risk from extreme heat, putting millions in danger of injury and thousands of death, according to new data from the UN’s International Labour Organization.
Third, the UN is calling to boost the resilience of communities by using data and science, and fourth, to limit global temperatures to 1.5C to stave off more deadly heat in the future. Guterres called as he has previously for ending new coal projects and phasing out fossil fuels “fast and fairly.”
Potential steps that governments can take to protect their populations from heat are detailed in a new joint report from UN agencies. Officials can invest in passive cooling projects, improve the energy efficiency of buildings, review laws to ensure workers have protections and up spending on mitigating and adapting to climate change. They can also establish and bolster early warning systems for heat. Guterres noted that scaling up heat and health warning systems in 57 counties could save nearly 100,000 lives a year, according to the World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization.
Monday, July 22 was the hottest day on record globally, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, beating out the previous record set the day before on Sunday, July 21. The world also just experienced its hottest June, marking the 13th consecutive month that’s set a new average temperature record. Climate scientists say all this heat is putting 2024 on track to surpass 2023 as the hottest year on record.
High temperatures are negatively impacting people’s lives across the globe. Schools are closing early, crops are withering and infrastructure is failing. The most dire impact is on people’s health, with extreme heat causing a growing number of people to get sick and die. In a single week in June, for example, more than 1,300 people died during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia amid a heat wave.
“Extreme heat is having an extreme impact on people and planet,” Guterres said. “The world must rise to the challenge of rising temperatures.”
(Updated with more Guterres comments in the fifth and sixth paragraphs.)
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