UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday warned that humanity is suffering from an “extreme heat epidemic” and called for global action to limit the dangerous impacts of heat waves exacerbated by climate change. Guterres’s call to action highlights the urgent need to address the impacts of rising temperatures and the broader climate crisis.
In a speech delivered Thursday, Guterres emphasized that billions of people worldwide are suffering from increasingly severe heat waves. “Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic — wilting under increasingly deadly heat waves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world,” he stated. “That’s 122 degrees Fahrenheit. And halfway to boiling.”
Recent data from the European Copernicus network underscores the severity of the situation. According to their records, July 21, 22, and 23 were the hottest days ever recorded globally, with July 22 reaching an unprecedented 17.16 degrees Celsius (62.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average.
Guterres reiterated his call for an end to the reliance on fossil fuels, which he decried as the root cause of the climate crisis. “Today, our focus is on the impact of extreme heat. But let’s not forget that there are many other devastating symptoms of the climate crisis: ever-more fierce hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, rising sea levels, and the list goes on,” he said.
“To tackle all these symptoms, we need to fight the disease. And the disease is the madness of incinerating our only home. The disease is the addiction to fossil fuels. The disease is climate inaction,” Guterres maintained.
The Secretary-General’s remarks come as 2023 is confirmed as the hottest year on record, with 2024 potentially surpassing it. Temperatures exceeding 40°C (104°F) have become alarmingly frequent, with at least ten locations worldwide recording temperatures above 50°C (122°F) in the past year, including Death Valley in the United States (53.9°C on July 7), Agadir in Morocco, and regions in China and India.
Extreme heat, often overshadowed by more visible impacts of climate change like storms and floods, is nonetheless a significant threat. It is described as a “silent killer,” responsible for approximately 489,000 deaths annually between 2000 and 2019, compared to 16,000 deaths per year from cyclones, according to the UN’s “Call to Action” document released Thursday.
The economic toll of extreme heat is also considerable. The UN estimates that heat stress at work could lead to economic losses amounting to $2.4 trillion by 2030. In 2020, more than 70 percent of workers were exposed to excessive heat, a significant increase from 8.8 percent in 2000, according to a report by the International Labor Organization.
Guterres offered a glimmer of hope, stating that “the good news is that we can save lives and we can limit its impact.” The UN’s call to action includes several recommendations, such as protecting the most vulnerable populations—including young children, the elderly, and the poorest—by implementing early warning systems for extreme heat.
Additionally, there is a push for “equitable access to and scaling up of low-carbon cooling” methods, including investing in passive cooling systems like reflective surfaces and natural cooling technologies and phasing out climate-warming gases used in many current cooling systems.
Data from the United Nations’ International Labour Organization shows that more than 70 percent of the global workforce was exposed to excessive heat during 2020 — up nearly nine percent from the year 2000.
In a fresh report breaking down the heat stress by region, ILO showed unexpectedly that Africa was hardest hit, with nearly 93 percent of workers suffering from excessive heat exposure on the job, followed by Asia and the Pacific at 74.7 percent.
But at a time when human-induced climate change is seen driving global temperatures ever higher — last year was by far the hottest ever recorded — the fastest-changing working conditions were seen in regions not traditionally impacted by extreme heat.
Excessive heat exposure at work swelled the most in Europe and Central Asia, jumping to 17.3 percent over the 20-year period to 29 percent, the ILO report found.
At the same time, the Americas, along with Europe and Central Asia, were found to have the most rapidly increasing proportion of heat-related occupational injuries, swelling 33.3 and 16.4 percent respectively over the two decades.
The ILO report cautioned that “countries previously unaccustomed to extreme heat will face unfamiliar threats which they may be ill-equipped to deal with, while conditions in regions already contending with sustained high temperatures will only deteriorate”.
At a global level, nearly 23 million occupational injuries attributed to excessive heat are reported each year, costing an estimated nearly 19,000 lives annually, the ILO said in a report published earlier this year. “Heat is an invisible force – a silent killer,” Tuesday’s report cautioned.
It said heat hazards both for indoor and outdoor work increase the “risk of health impacts such as heat exhaustion, heat stroke, cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, and death”.
The report highlighted the impact of heatwaves, which account for about 10 percent of overall excessive heat exposure globally, and which it said had cost 4,200 workers their lives in 2020.
In total, 231 million workers were exposed to heatwaves that year — a 66-percent hike from 2000.
Europe, Central Asia and the Americas saw the fastest increase in exposure to excessive heat on the job during heatwaves, with around 78.5 percent of such exposure happening during heatwaves, the ILO report said.
“Excessive heat is creating unprecedented challenges for workers worldwide year-round, and not only during periods of intense heatwaves,” Vera Paquete-Perdigao, head of ILO’s governance department which produced the report, said in a statement.
