United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivers remarks on climate change and ecology during the official opening ceremony of Lisbon European Green Capital 2020 event, on January 11, 2020 in Lisbon, Portugal. | Photo by Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
2020 is on track to be a hell of a year for yet another reason: it will close out the hottest five-year period in recorded history, according to a new report. The average global temperature for that five-year period was 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures.
Even a degree of change has dire consequences. World leaders that have signed onto the Paris climate agreement are working to keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to avoid catastrophic damage. But they are nowhere near meeting that goal, the report reaffirms.
The new report released today by the World Meteorological Association and other United Nations agencies breaks down how climate…