The COVID-19 pandemic "exacerbates socio-economic impacts of climate change," which accelerated in the past five years, the World Meteorological Organization(WMO) said on Wednesday.
"COVID-19 may result in a temporary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but it is not a substitute for sustained climate action," the WMO said in a statement released on the 50th Earth Day.
"While COVID-19 has caused a severe international health and economic crisis, failure to tackle climate change may threaten human well-being, ecosystems and economies for centuries," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas was quoted by the statement as saying.
"We need to flatten both the pandemic and climate change curves," he stressed.
In one of the activities to mark Earth Day, WMO released its final report on the Global Climate 2015-2019.
The report confirmed that 2015-2019 was the warmest five-year period on record, saying that the global average temperature has increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial period, and by 0.2 degrees Celsius compared to 2011-2015.
Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, said the report.
The WMO predicts that a new global mean temperature record is likely to occur in the next five-year period (2020-2024), and that further increases in global temperature are likely.
The report also shows that CO2 levels and other key greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have risen to new records, with CO2 growth rates 18 percent higher in 2015-2019 than the previous five years.
"We need to show the same determination and unity against climate change as against COVID-19," said Taalas. "We need to act together in the interests of the health and welfare of humanity not just for the coming weeks and months, but for many generations ahead." Enditem
