The UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has made an urgent call for a global action plan to tackle extreme heat. His recent speech in New York came as the average temperature of the Earth’s surface has broken records twice and followed 12 consecutive months as the warmest months ever.
Extreme heat is how most people experience the impacts of climate change. It kills half a million people a year – about 30 times more than tropical cyclones, as Guterres noted. But beyond the tragedy of the rising deaths, extreme heat undermines our productivity, making some jobs too dangerous to do. That puts pressure on every part of our economies and lives.
This latest global call to action emphasises four critical areas of response: protecting the vulnerable, protecting workers, boosting resilience and limiting further warming to stave off an era of what Guterres has termed “global boiling”.
