United Nations, .- The impact of climate change continued to skyrocket in 2018, with further increases in temperatures and with clear consequences for citizens around the world, according to a report presented Thursday by the UN, which insisted that the world must react immediately.
The document, the final version of the Declaration on the state of the climate that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) prepares every year, redraws a very worrying panorama in everything related to global warming.
Last year it recorded the fourth highest global average temperature since data exist, but it was the warmest of all those in which the La Niña phenomenon occurred, marked by lower temperatures in the Pacific.
According to WMO, this situation suggests that the global warming trend continues without stopping.
Other climatic indicators, such as the oceanic heat, reached new highs last year, exceeding the record set in 2017.
According to WMO, the heat content of the seas provides a direct measure of the energy accumulation in the upper layers of the ocean, where more than 90% of the energy trapped by greenhouse gases ends up.
The level of the sea also continued to rise, which in 2018 had a global average level approximately 3.7 millimeters higher than in 2017, a new record, as a result of the retreat of the ice sheets.
The most pressing problem, according to WMO, is the continued increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, which is expected to continue rising in 2019.
Despite commitments to try to reduce these emissions, last year they rose in all regions of the world with the exception of Europe.
“Climate change is advancing faster than our efforts to respond to it,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres stressed at a press conference.
The Portuguese, who has summoned heads of state and government from around the world to a summit on climate in September, wants governments to increase their ambition and offer “concrete and realistic” measures for a sustainable future, in line with the commitments agreed in the Paris Agreement.
“I am telling the leaders: ‘do not come with speeches, come with a plan,'” Guterres explained.
The WMO report, which is usually presented in Geneva, was unveiled this year in New York, taking advantage of a meeting on climate change that countries are holding in the UN General Assembly.
The president of this body, the Ecuadorian Maria Fernanda Espinosa, stressed that the data of the study are “very worrying” and that it is necessary to “act and act now”.
The WMO report documents, among other things, an increase in the number and intensity of extreme weather events, such as the harsh typhoons that hit several Asian countries last year, the heat wave experienced in Europe or the devastating storms that occurred in Europe. U.S.
The country, which under the administration of Donald Trump has abandoned the Paris Agreement, suffered in 1414 disasters that left damages amounting to nearly 50 billion dollars, including hurricanes Florence and Michael.
The trend has continued in these first months of 2019, with cyclone Idai – which devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi – as the maximum exponent and as an illustration of the need for all countries to prepare to respond to this type of catastrophe.
The increase of these extreme phenomena is increasing the risks in the area of ​​food security, affecting the health of many people and triggering population movements, according to the UN (EFEUSA)
