UN says global temperatures likely will surpass target limit by 2028

GENEVA (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called Wednesday for a “windfall” tax on profits of fossil fuel companies to help pay for the fight against global warming, calling them the “godfathers of climate chaos.”

Guterres spoke in a bid to revive the world’s focus on climate change at a time when elections, inflation and conflict in places like Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan have seized the spotlight.

In a speech timed for World Environment Day, the U.N. chief drew on new data and projections to make a case against Big Oil. The European Union’s Copernicus service, a global reference for tracking world temperatures, said that last month was the hottest May ever, marking the 12th straight monthly record high.

The service cited an average surface air temperature of 15.9 degrees Celsius (60.6 degrees Fahrenheit) last month — 1.52 degrees Celsius higher than the estimated May average before industrial times.

The burning of fossil fuels — oil, gas and coal — is the main contributor to global warming caused by human activity.

The World Meteorological Organization said the global mean near-surface temperature for each year from 2024 to 2028 is expected to range between 1.1 and 1.9 degrees Celsius hotter than at the start of the industrial era. The landmark Paris climate accord of 2015 set a target of keeping the rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

“Beyond the predictions and statistics is the stark reality that we risk trillions of dollars in economic losses, millions of lives upended and destruction of fragile and precious ecosystems and the biodiversity that exists there,” Ko Barrett, the WMO’s deputy secretary-general, told a news conference in Geneva.

“What is clear is that the Paris agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius is hanging on a thread. It’s not yet dead, but it’s hanging by a thread,” she added.

“This forecast is affirmation that the world has entered a climate where years that are as hot as 2023 should no longer be a surprise,” Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability, said in an email.

A study released Tuesday by 57 scientists said that as the world keeps burning fossil fuels, Earth is likely