Peter Lazenby
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THE world is on the road to ruin unless nations act to stop climate change, the United Nations (UN) warned yesterday.
The international body said that 2024 had “capped a decade of unprecedented heat fuelled by human activities.”
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which will publish official temperature figures for 2024 in January, said the year “saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent.”
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said: “In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions and supporting the transition to a renewable future.
“It is essential, and it is possible. I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat.
“The top 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years, including 2024.
“This is climate breakdown, in real time. We must exit this road to ruin and we have no time to lose.”
WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo said every degree of warming matters and leads to increased climate extremes, with temperatures “only part of the picture.”
“This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent,” she said.
“Tropical cyclones caused a terrible human and economic toll, most recently in the French overseas department of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean.
“Intense heat scorched dozens of countries, with temperatures topping 50°C on a number of occasions. Wildfires wreaked devastation.”
Communist Party of Britain environment commission convener Richard Hebbert warned: “With the advance of climate-denying right-wing and nationalist politics in many parts of the world, not least the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the chances of change from above are ever-diminishing.
“We have to educate, inform and organise from below towards a popular front making an irresistible demand for change — but we have to do it now, time is running out.”
