2020 appears to be the hottest year in Europe since temperature measurements began in the mid-19th century. It was also extremely hot in the southwest of the United States, parts of Central and South America and parts of China. Globally, it will be one of the three hottest years, according to the WMO, the UN meteorological organization, in a report.
So far, 2016 has been the hottest year worldwide. The six years from 2015 are all among the six warmest ever.
According to the WMO, 2020 is also an extreme year for the climate in other respects, with extremely melting ice at the North and South Poles, for example. Among the dozens of examples of extreme developments, the WMO mentions that Death Valley in California had the highest temperature on earth in eighty years (54.4 degrees), that the fires in California and Colorado were more severe than ever before and that in Siberia during a heat wave in June reached a record 38 degrees.
Virtual climate summit
The report was presented on the eve of a virtual climate summit. It will be held in Paris on December 12, on the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement. There, the goal was set for the temperature to rise no more than 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era.
This year it is on average 1.2 degrees warmer on Earth than in the middle of the 19th century and according to the UN there is at least a 1 in 5 chance that the 1.5 degrees increase in temperature will be reached in 2024.
Following the report, UN Secretary-General Guterres is calling on world leaders to end “the war against nature”. “Humanity is at war against nature,” he says. “That’s suicide. Apocalyptic fires, floods and hurricanes are increasingly the new normal.”
Guterres went on to say that the world cannot stop climate change “without the leadership of the United States.”
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