The world has endured a “decade of deadly heat”, with 2024 capping 10 years of unprecedented temperatures, the UN has said.
The UN’s climate and weather agency, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), will publish official temperature figures for the year in January.
Guterres said: “I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat. The top 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years, including 2024.
“This is climate breakdown, in real time. We must exit this road to ruin and we have no time to lose. In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions and supporting the transition to a renewable future. It is essential, and it is possible.”
The WMO secretary general, Celeste Saulo, said every degree of warming mattered and led to increased climate extremes, with temperatures being “only part of the picture”.
“This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent,” she said.
“Tropical cyclones caused a terrible human and economic toll, most recently in the French overseas department of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Intense heat scorched dozens of countries, with temperatures topping 50˚C on a number of occasions. Wildfires wreaked devastation.”
The WMO pointed to a new report that found climate change intensified 26 of the 29 extreme weather events studied by World Weather Attribution (WWA) in 2024, which killed at least 3,700 people and displaced millions.
Climate change added 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, according to the report from WWA, a network of scientists who examine the role of global warming in extreme weather events, and the research and reporting organisation Climate Central.