MADRID Nov. 2 () –
The United Nations World Meteorological Office (WMO) has called this Friday on the international community to give “top priority” to “saving lives” to the fight against climate change, after the “record rains and deadly flash floods that have hit Spain this week.”
“The floods we are seeing in Spain are just one of the many, many, many extreme climate and water-related disasters that have taken place around the world this year. Almost every week we are seeing shocking images,” he lamented. WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis speaking to the press from Geneva.
The representative of the meteorological agency has stressed that “some areas received more than the equivalent of a year’s worth of rain in the space of eight hours” and has insisted on the importance of early warning mechanisms, promoted in 2022 by the secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, so that “everyone on Earth is protected from climatic, water or dangerous events.”
Nullis recalled that, since September, “extreme weather events (…) have become more likely and more serious due to anthropogenic climate change”, and that – just as is happening now in Spain – other areas of Central Europe has suffered “very intense rains, which have broken local and national records.”
Thus, the WMO has warned that “each additional fraction of warming (…) increases the risk of extreme precipitation and flooding” and has insisted that “the world must act now”, guaranteeing that “early warnings lead to informed early action.
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