MARRAKESH – Climate change has increased the risks of extreme events such as heatwaves, drought, record rainfall and damaging floods,” World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas says.
More than 50 percent of major extreme weather events from 2011 to 2015 showed the telltale fingerprint of human-induced global warming, WMO reported on the sidelines of United Nations climate talks in Marrakesh.
Some 300,000 people perished in climate-boosted catastrophes during the 2011-2015 period, the WMO calculated.
According to a UN report, climate change has made deadly heatwaves and hurricanes, along with droughts and flooding, both more frequent and more intense in recent years.
The last half-decade was the warmest five-year stretch on record, with 2014 and 2015 the hottest of all.
These unprecedented temperatures were coupled with rising seas, adding to the destructive power of storms already amped up by warmer, moister air, the report said.
