May was the twelfth consecutive warmest month on record.Guterres:«The planet is in danger and we are the meteorite»

Data from the European Copernicus service and the World Meteorological Organization confirm yet another increase in temperatures

Over the past year, every month has been the warmest in recorded history.This is certified by the Copernicus service, the Earth observation program financed by the European Commission.May 2024 was the warmest May ever globally, with global surface air temperatures 0.65°C higher than the 1991-2020 average.This is the twelfth consecutive month for which the global average temperature reaches a record value for the corresponding month.“It's shocking but not surprising,” he comments Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus service dedicated to climate change.“Even if this sequence of record-breaking months will eventually be broken, the overall sign of climate change remains and there is no sign that this trend will reverse.”

The 1.5°C threshold

When comparing the global average temperature for May 2024 to the pre-industrial average (1850-1900), the increase was 1.52°C, just above the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement .This is the eleventh consecutive month that has seen an increase above the 1.5 degree threshold, considered essential by the scientific community to avoid some of the worst-case scenarios of climate change.«This series of warmer months will be remembered as relatively cold», explains Buontempo, «but if we can stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere in the very near future we may be able to return to these “cold” temperatures by end of the century".Also contributing to the temperature record is El Niño, the climate phenomenon that occurs on average every five years and causes a strong warming of the waters of the Pacific Ocean and, consequently, of the entire planet.

Guterres' new appeal

The sequence of twelve consecutive months of record temperatures was also confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations agency that deals with meteorology.Also commenting on the new alarming data on global warming António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, who launched a new appeal to ask for more decisive action by governments and companies in the fight against climate change.“Our planet is trying to tell us something, but we don't seem to want to hear it,” Guterres said from the American Museum of Natural History in New York.In his speech, the United Nations Secretary General once again underlined the now undeniable contribution of human beings to the climate crisis:«Like the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs, we too are having a huge impact.In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs.We are the meteorite.We're not just in danger, we are The danger.But we are also the solution."

On the cover:A group of people at the beach in Karachi, Pakistan, where temperatures exceeded 50°C in some areas, May 29, 2024 (EPA/Shahzaib Akber)