Reacting to new data by Copernicus Climate Change Service that revealed that average global temperatures have been 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for a year, Teresa Anderson, Global Climate Justice Lead at ActionAid International, said:
“The nightmare of climate change is now real as intolerable heatwaves, devastating cyclones, and ecosystem losses spread across the planet. The fundamental injustice of climate change is that millions of the poorest people across Africa, Asia, and Latin America who have done the least to cause the problem are forced to suffer the worst impacts.
This is a terrible warning that climate action has to move into a much higher gear.
At COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan later this year, the hot issue of a new goal for climate finance will be on the table. If we want to avert runaway climate breakdown, the wealthiest polluting countries need to stop fuelling the fire and agree to pay to clean up the havoc that they are unleashing on the rest of the world.”
[ENDS]
- Today’s news does not mean that the Paris Agreement threshold has been crossed, as the 1.5°C threshold is for a longer-term average over multiple years.
Contact the ActionAid Press Office at media-enquiries@actionaid.org or +263776665065.
About ActionAid
ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 41 million people living in more than 71 of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world, in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity, and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty.