Environment & Climate
Climate expert warns of rising global extreme weather trend
IPCC vice-chair Diana Ürge-Vorsatz attributes recent extreme heatwaves and flooding to human-induced climate change.
The short version
- A leading climate scientist has warned that recent severe heatwaves and flooding are part of an inevitable trend toward hotter summers, more wildfires, droughts, and floods.
- Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, vice-chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, stated that the summer's extreme heat was impossible without human-induced climate change.
- She emphasized that while global warming can still be halted at current levels, doing so requires completely stopping the burning of fossil fuels.
Key facts
- Diana Ürge-Vorsatz is a professor of environmental studies at the Central European University and vice-chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[France 24]
- Ürge-Vorsatz stated that the extreme heatwave experienced in June would not have been possible without human-induced climate change.[France 24]
- She pointed to recent catastrophic flooding in Nepal as an example of the accelerating trend toward more frequent and severe weather extremes.[France 24]
- According to Ürge-Vorsatz, halting global warming at current levels remains possible but is contingent on ending the burning of fossil fuels.[France 24]