Increasingly hot and acidic seas, more polluted air, concentrations of greenhouse gases... The indicators of global warming are red.

Four key markers of climate change broke new records in 2021, the UN said on Wednesday (May 18), warning that the global energy system is leading humanity to disaster.

Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, temperature and ocean acidification all set new records last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its " State of the global climate in 2021".

This report is "a lamentable litany of humanity's failure to fight climate change", denounced the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres.

“The global energy system is broken and bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe,” he warned, urging to “end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the transition to renewable energy before to cremate our only home."

To read: Drought: France is in a "critical phase" of global warming 

Record heat and acidity of the oceans

The WMO said human activity is causing changes on a planetary scale: on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for ecosystems.

The oceans reached the hottest and most acidic levels on record in 2021, while melting ice caps are accelerating sea level rise, the organization points out.

In its annual report, it also highlights the extreme phenomena to which the world's oceans are subject due to the increasingly marked effects of climate change.

The report also confirmed that the past seven years were the seven hottest years on record.

La Nina-related weather events in early and late 2021 had a chilling effect on global temperatures last year.

But despite this, 2021 remains one of the hottest years on record, with the average global temperature around 1.11°C above pre-industrial levels.

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement aims to limit global warming to +1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era.

To read: Between climate emergency and drought in Africa, COP15 begins in Abidjan 

“Our climate is changing before our very eyes,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.

“Heat trapped by human-made greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come. Sea level rise, heat and ocean acidification will continue for hundreds of years. unless ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere are invented."

Deadly air pollution

Meanwhile, worsening air pollution and lead poisoning have kept the level of deaths from environmental contamination worldwide at 9 million a year since 2015, a study released on Tuesday shows.

In total, between 2015 and 2019, air pollution from industrial processes as well as urbanization led to a 7% increase in pollution-related deaths, according to analysis of data on global mortality and levels of pollution. pollution made by scientists from the NGO Pure Earth.

According to the study, the ten countries most affected by pollution-related deaths are Chad, Central African Republic, Niger, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, North Korea, Lesotho, Bulgaria and Burkina Faso.

"We're in the pot and we're slowly simmering," said study co-author and director of Pure Earth Richard Fuller.

But unlike climate change, malaria or HIV, "we haven't paid much attention (to environmental pollution)," he says.

Solutions ?

António Guterres has proposed five actions to kick-start the transition to renewables 'before it's too late': end fossil fuel subsidies, triple investment in renewables, cut red tape, secure supply raw materials for renewable energy technologies and make these technologies - such as battery storage - freely available global public goods.

"If we act together, the transformation of renewable energy can be the peace project of the 21st century," said Antonio Guterres.

With AFP and Reuters 

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