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STORY: UN / GUTERRES EXTREME HEAT
TRT: 05:11
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 31 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
31 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Secretary-General António Guterres walks up to the stakeout podium
3. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Even as we grapple with war and instability, another crisis is accelerating – one that respects no borders and is devastating lives and livelihoods across the globe. Two months ago, I warned that El Niño was arriving on our doorstep. Now it is inside the house – and turning up the heat.”
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
4. Close up, camera
31 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
5. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“New forecasts released today by the World Meteorological Organization provide a stark picture of the period from August through October. El Niño is strengthening – adding fuel to a planet already on fire. The Pacific waters driving it have never been this warm this early in an El Niño – and temperatures are still rising. Today’s latest news indicates sea-surface temperatures in key monitoring regions to average nearly 3 degrees Celsius above normal. At the same time, WMO’s outlook shows that through October, nearly every land area on Earth is expected to be hotter than normal. Taken together, that risks shattering every seasonal record – and driving even more severe effects worldwide. We are in uncharted territory.”
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
6. Close up, camera
31 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
7. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“The verdict is clear: the climate crisis is in overdrive. Extreme heat has long been called the silent killer. Yet even that description may understate the crisis, because heat deaths are vastly undercounted around the world. Many fatalities linked to extreme heat are never recorded as such, even when heat plays a decisive role. What we do know is deeply alarming: heat is claiming lives on a growing scale, day after day, in every region of the world.”
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8. Med shot, reporters’ laptops
31 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
9. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Extreme heat is widening inequalities, deepening hunger, weakening economies, and pushing development further out of reach. Two years ago this month, I launched a Call to Action on Extreme Heat. And since then, we have helped more governments improve forecasts and early warnings. More cities have adopted Heat Action Plans – and over 250 have joined the Beat the Heat initiative. These measures are saving lives. But the planet is heating faster than our response.”
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
10. Close up, camera
31 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
11. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Every city and country should have heat-health action plans, early warning systems and public health measures that reach every community in time. And access to sustainable cooling must expand – urgently and equitably. Extreme heat is a society-wide threat – and demands a government-wide response.”
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
12. Close up, reporter taking notes
31 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
13. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“It is time to stop treating each disaster as an isolated tragedy and recognize the systemic risk that is unfolding before our eyes. And, make no mistake, the costs of fossil fuels are measured not only in climate disasters, but also in energy insecurity and geopolitical instability – as we see playing out today in the Middle East and beyond. Every new fossil fuel project approved today makes tomorrow’s heatwaves more dangerous, and our world less secure. Yet some governments still plan to produce more than twice as much fossil fuel in 2030 as the 1.5-degree limit allows.”
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
14. Close up, reporter taking notes
31 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
15. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Unless we act – to protect people and tackle the root cause of the crisis – it will become deadlier still. The warm-up act is over. We cannot afford to wait for the main event.”
16. Wide shot, Guterres at the podium
17. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“There is a deliberate Campaign, namely by the fossil fuel industry and some countries, in order to pretend that the problems that we are witnessing indeed do not exist, and what the UN must do is be more and more active in addressing this challenge, in naming the situations as they are, and the responsibilities as they are, and mobilising the public opinion to tell governments it's time to recognise this threat as an existential threat to us all.”
18. Pan right, Guterres walks away
Secretary-General António Guterres today (31 Jul) warned that “we are in uncharted territory,” as the Pacific Ocean’s waters “have never been this warm this early in an El Niño” event.
Talking to journalists in New York, Guterres said, “even as we grapple with war and instability, another crisis is accelerating – one that respects no borders and is devastating lives and livelihoods across the globe.”
He said new forecasts by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) “provide a stark picture of the period from August through October. El Niño is strengthening – adding fuel to a planet already on fire.”
WMO’s outlook shows that through October, nearly every land area on Earth is expected to be hotter than normal.
The Secretary-General said, “the verdict is clear: the climate crisis is in overdrive” and stressed that “heat is claiming lives on a growing scale, day after day, in every region of the world.”
Extreme heat, he continued, “is widening inequalities, deepening hunger, weakening economies, and pushing development further out of reach,” and recalled that his Call to Action on Extreme Heat, launched in 2024 has “helped more governments improve forecasts and early warnings,” but acknowledged that “the planet is heating faster than our response.”
Guterres said, “every city and country should have heat-health action plans, early warning systems and public health measures that reach every community in time. And access to sustainable cooling must expand – urgently and equitably.”
He told journalists that governments and employers must set heat standards, adjust working hours, and protect incomes when work must stop in order to make work safer, and protection from extreme heat must be designed into cities, homes, schools and hospitals, and factored into every plan and public budget.
The Secretary-General said, “it is time to stop treating each disaster as an isolated tragedy and recognize the systemic risk that is unfolding before our eyes,” stressing that “the costs of fossil fuels are measured not only in climate disasters, but also in energy insecurity and geopolitical instability – as we see playing out today in the Middle East and beyond.”
He said, “every new fossil fuel project approved today makes tomorrow’s heatwaves more dangerous, and our world less secure. Yet some governments still plan to produce more than twice as much fossil fuel in 2030 as the 1.5-degree limit allows.”
To conclude, Guterres said, “unless we act – to protect people and tackle the root cause of the crisis – it will become deadlier still. The warm-up act is over. We cannot afford to wait for the main event.”
Responding to a journalist’s question, the Secretary-General said, “there is a deliberate Campaign, namely by the fossil fuel industry and some countries, in order to pretend that the problems that we are witnessing indeed do not exist, and what the UN must do is be more and more active in addressing this challenge, in naming the situations as they are, and the responsibilities as they are, and mobilising the public opinion to tell governments it's time to recognise this threat as an existential threat to us all.”
