World must exit ‘highway to climate hell’, UN boss warns, as records are again broken

The UN secretary-general said the world needed “an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell”, as the latest data showed the streak of record global temperatures stretched into a 12th consecutive month in May.

The battle to limit the world’s temperature rise “will be won or lost” this decade, António Guterres said, under the watch of current political leaders.

“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” he said on Wednesday, in an effort to spur hundreds of negotiators from almost 200 countries gathered for the third day of 10 days of UN climate talks in Bonn, ahead of the G7 and G20 summits.

The UN chief once again targeted the fossil fuel industry for its role in climate change, calling for a tobacco-style ban on advertising by oil, gas and coal companies, describing their ad campaigns as “Mad Men fuelling the madness”.

The global average temperature for the past 12 months had risen to 1.63C above the pre-industrial average, the European earth observation agency Copernicus Climate Change Service reported on Wednesday.

The average May temperature of 15.91C was 1.52C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, and 0.65C above the 1991-2020 average, it said, continuing the run of monthly records.

This does not represent a breach of the landmark goal to limit global warming ideally to 1.5C above pre industrial levels, which countries committed to as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, as this is defined over a period of more than a decade.

But climate scientists stress that exceeding this threshold consistently over the shorter term increases the chances it will be breached by the end of the decade.

“This string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold,” said Carlo Buontempo, the director of Copernicus, as temperatures would keep rising unless greenhouse gas emissions were cut. Last year, emissions rose by another 1 per cent, compared with the more than 40 per cent cut needed by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5C.

The World Meteorological Organization now puts the chances of the 1.5C level being exceeded in the next five years at 47 per cent, based on a synthesis of data from weather agencies globally.

You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.

Coinciding with the monthly climate data, separate research produced by dozens of top climate scientists led by the University of Leeds also found that the chances of the 1.5C goal being preserved were drastically reduced.

The Earth System Science Data paper said that only another 200bn tonnes of carbon dioxide could be released into the atmosphere, down from 500bn at the start of 2020, to ensure a 50 per cent chance of remaining within the boundary of 1.5C of warming. That equates to about five years of current emissions.

Humans have caused long-term average global warming of 1.19C above the pre-industrial level, based on data over the past decade, it concluded, aligning with previous findings from the IPCC UN body of scientists.

The majority of global warming in 2023 was human-caused, or 92 per cent, with just 8 per cent attributed to natural phenomena including the El Niño effect related to the warming of the Pacific Ocean.

It noted that a portion of the average 0.26C temperature rise in the past decade was down to lower emissions of particles that block sunlight, including lower levels of sulphur dioxide pollutants in shipping fuel. But some of this effect was offset by pollution from increasing wildfires.

Guterres said that, nearly a decade on from the Paris accord, the goal was “hanging by a thread”, given we “already face incursions into 1.5 degree territory”. 

Rich countries were responsible for most global emissions and should go “furthest, fastest”, Guterres said. This included action to clamp the fossil fuel industry, end deforestation, reallocate subsidies to clean energy and support vulnerable communities.

Failing to hit the goal risked some island nations disappearing under water, trillions of dollars in economic damage around the world, and weather patterns changing irreversibly, he said.

Climate Capital

Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT’s coverage here.

Are you curious about the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments? Find out more about our science-based targets here