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STORY: UN / CLIMATE CHANGE AUGUST WRAP
TRT: 05:09
SOURCE: UNIFEED / WFP / OHCHR / UNICEF / UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: FILE
FILE - WFP - 11 APRIL 2023, BENTIU, SOUTH SUDAN
1. Various shots, aerial views of flooded areas
2. Various shots, flooded village
FILE - WFP - 14 APRIL 2023, BENTIU, SOUTH SUDAN
3. Various shots, livestock grazing on the few patches of land left above the floods
4. Various shots, WFP dike building project
FILE - WFP - 15 APRIL 2023, DINGDING
5. Various shots, man carrying collecting through flooded waters
FILE - UNICEF - MARCH 2019, DHAKA BANGLADESH
6. Wide shot, buses and cycles on busy street
FILE - UNICEF - JUNE 2023, PAKISTAN
7. Med shot, man fanning himself
8. Med shot, man in shop with fan behind
9. Med shot, man in shop with fan behind
10. Med shot, man drinking from pipe
11. Med shot, woman drinking and washing up with water
FILE - UNICEF - MARCH 2019, DHAKA BANGLADESH
12. Close up, children sleeping outside
13. Med shot, children sleeping outside
FILE - UNICEF - 03 NOVEMBER 2022, JACOBABAD, SINDH PROVINCE, PAKISTAN
14. Wide shot, child collects water from a tube-well
FILE - UNICEF - JUNE 2023, PAKISTAN
15. Close up, back of young boy's head, dry cracked earth surrounding
16. Wide shot, boy walks through field of cracked earth
FILE - OHCHR - 03 AUGUST 2023, MARSHLANDS, SOUTHERN IRAQ
17. Wide shot, Nature Iraq managing director Jassim Al-Asadi walking pass traditional reed house
18. Wide shot, Al-Asadi standing in dried marshland
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Jassim Al-Asadi, Managing Director, Nature Iraq:
“There is a change in the environment of this area, instead of water its dry, completely, instead of the reeds there are desert trees.”
20. Wide shot, dried marshland
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Jassim Al-Asadi, Managing Director, Nature Iraq:
“Climate change and the effects of climate change and the water issue in the Euphrates and Tigris inside Iraq.”
FILE - OHCHR - 10 AUGUST 2023, BAGHDAD, IRAQ
22. Wide shot, press conference room Baghdad, Iraq
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Volker Türk, High Commissioner for Human Rights:
“This is a climate emergency. And it is high time it is treated like one. Not just for Iraq but for the world. What is happening here is a window into a future that is now coming for other parts of the world – if we continue to fail in our responsibility to take preventive and mitigating action against climate change.”
FILE - UNICEF - JUNE 2023, PAKISTAN
24. Aerial shots, flooded and dry fields, tractor along river, cracked earth, homes with flooded fields
25. Aerial shots, boy walking peninsula, flooded waters
26. Aerial shots, boy walking through dry-cracked earth neighbourhood
FILE – UNTV CH - 08 AUGUST 2023 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
27. Wide shot, Palais des Nations flag alley, nations’ flags flying
28. Wide shot, podium with speaker, press briefing room
29. Close up, Samantha Burgess on computer screen
30. SOUNDBITE (English) Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director Copernicus Climate Change Service, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF):
“The global average temperature for July 2023 is confirmed to be the highest on record for any month. The month is estimated to have been around 1.5 degrees warmer than the average for 1815 to 1900, so the average for pre-industrial times.”
31. Med shot, Chris Hewitt speaking
32. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Hewitt, Director of Climate Services, World Meteorological Organization (WMO):
“This long-term warming trend, it is driven by continued increases in concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere so the three main gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, they all reached record observed highs.”
33. Wide shot, Hewitt speaking
FILE - UNTV CH - 22 AUGUST 2023, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
34. Wide shot, panel
35. SOUNDBITE (English) Clare Nullis, Spokesperson, World Meteorological Organization (WMO):
“Switzerland has a new altitude record for the freezing point of 5298 meters. So that's the 17,381 feet.”
36. Wide shot, attendees at briefing.
37. SOUNDBITE (English) Clare Nullis, World Meteorological Organization (WMO):
“This heat on glaciers is, you know, playing out before our eyes as we speak. The freezing level in the glaciers, the disappearance of snow was dramatic last year. And unfortunately, with this latest heat wave that trend is continuing.”
38. Close up, hands typing
Floods, droughts and extreme temperatures continued to be the norm during the month of August.
South Sudan is simultaneously drowning and drying as the climate crisis tightens its grip. A unique combination of catastrophic floods and devastating drought are driving hunger to unprecedented levels as access to food is pushed out of reach of families who were previously able to feed themselves.
Two-thirds of the population (7.76 million people) are facing crisis or worse levels of hunger. This is the highest number ever, surpassing that seen even at the height of the country’s civil war.
Four consecutive years of record flooding has led to widespread displacement, the destruction of livelihoods and the loss of arable land. In March and April, rainfall was 50 percent above long-term averages over the Lake Victoria basin, the source of the flooding, which means water levels are likely to rise later in 2023.
At the same time, the onset of the rainy season has been extremely delayed which will potentially affect crop later on in the year. In the southeast - two consecutive years of failed rainy seasons have contributed to an almost 20 percent increase in the number of critically food-insecure people in Kapoeta since December.
South Asia has the highest percentage of children exposed to extreme high temperatures, compared to all other regions, according to a UNICEF analysis. UNICEF estimates that 76 percent of children under 18 in South Asia – 460 million – are exposed to extreme high temperatures where 83 or more days in a year exceed 35°C.
This means that 3 in 4 children in South Asia are already exposed to extreme high temperature compared to only 1 in 3 children (32 percent) globally. The analysis is of 2020 data, the latest available.
In addition, the data also show that 28 percent of children across South Asia are exposed to 4.5 or more heatwaves per year, compared to 24 percent globally.
July was the hottest month ever recorded globally, raising further concerns about a future where children, including those living in South Asia, are expected to face more frequent and severe heatwaves, largely due to climate change.
According to UNICEF’s 2021 Children's Climate Risk Index (CCRI), children in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, and Pakistan are at 'extremely high risk' of the impacts of climate change.
The Mesopotamian marshes near Chibayish in southern Iraq, the waterways are lined by lush green reeds. But step onto land and the change is dramatic. No longer marshland but land scarred by years of drought. The heat is overwhelming with the midday temperatures reaching 50°C.
Jassim Al-Asadi, a hydraulic engineer, is the managing director of an environmental group called Nature Iraq.
Al-Asadi said, “there is a change in the environment of this area, instead of water its dry, completely, instead of the reeds there are desert trees.”
Iraq’s southern marshlands – fed by floodwaters from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers – have shrunk from 20,000 square kilometers in the early 1990s to 4,000, according to the latest estimates.
Al-Asadi said, “climate change and the effects of climate change and the water issue in the Euphrates and Tigris inside Iraq.”
The Iraqi population is particularly vulnerable to negative human rights impacts arising from serious environmental degradation caused by conflict, the oil industry, and mismanagement and lack of regulation resulting in high levels of pollution.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk ended a four-day visit to Iraq on 10 August. Türk visited the Shatt Al-Arab district, southeast of Basra, where he met former inhabitants who have been displaced from their land.
Speaking at a news conference in Baghdad at the end of his visit, Türk stressed the seriousness of the situation – for everyone.
“This is a climate emergency. And it is high time it is treated like one. Not just for Iraq but for the world. What is happening here is a window into a future that is now coming for other parts of the world – if we continue to fail in our responsibility to take preventive and mitigating action against climate change,” the UN Human Rights Chief said.
One year after historic floods devastated Pakistan and a national state of emergency was declared, millions of children continue to need humanitarian assistance and access to essential services, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned.
Recovery and rehabilitation efforts remain underfunded.
This season’s monsoon rains are worsening already challenging conditions for flood-affected communities, tragically claiming the lives of 87 children across the country.
UNICEF estimates there are still 8 million people, around half of whom are children, who live without access to safe water in flood-affected areas.
The global average temperature for July 2023 was the highest on record and likely for at least 120,000 years, the UN weather agency WMO and partners said.
“The global average temperature for July 2023 is confirmed to be the highest on record for any month,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director at the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. She added, “The month is estimated to have been around 1.5C warmer than the average for 1815 to 1900, so the average for pre-industrial times.”
Briefing journalists in Geneva, Burgess noted that July had been marked by heatwaves in multiple regions around the world.
From the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Chris Hewitt, Director of Climate Services, said, “this long-term warming trend, it is driven by continued increases in concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere so the three main gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, they all reached record observed highs.”
As sweltering conditions continue to grip large parts of Europe, temperatures have “reached new heights” in Switzerland, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned.
Speaking in Geneva, WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis said that a new altitude record for the freezing point had been set a day earlier, climbing to 5298 metres (17,381 feet) – well above Europe’s very highest peaks including Mont Blanc, at 4,811 metres (15,784 feet).
WMO figures show that this is 115 metres above the previous record of 25 July 2022 and the highest since measurements began in 1954.
Nullis explained that the freezing level had been measured by a Meteo-Suisse weather balloon above Payerne in the western canton of Vaud. “The impact of this heat on glaciers is playing out before our eyes,” she said. “The freezing level in the glaciers, [and] the disappearance of snow was dramatic last year. Unfortunately, with this latest heatwave, that trend is continuing.”
Meanwhile, large parts of Switzerland are on level three amber alert or the top-level red alert until Thursday, the WMO spokesperson said. Temperatures in much of the southern half of France are forecast to be “above 37C” on Tuesday, “reaching a peak of 40C to 42C in the Drome region.
