'The Age of Stupid': Stark warning from climate expert

A climate expert has said the 2020s should be called “the Age of Stupid” if climate warnings aren’t heeded amid record temperatures.

Prof David Reay, executive director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, said even climate sceptics “must now be wondering why their butts are so very hot”.

It comes after an analysis released by the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said summer 2023 was the hottest ever.

C3S said the world’s June-July-August season was the warmest on record by a large margin, with an average temperature of 16.77C.

This is 0.29C above the previous record of 16.48C set in 2019, and 0.66C above average.

In Europe, the average temperature between June and August was 19.63C, 0.83°C above average and the fifth warmest on record.

The summer was characterised by a series of intense wildfires across multiple continents.

And Prof Reay, who is also a professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Even those still with their heads in the sand on climate action must now be wondering why their butts are so very hot.

“We’ve had so many wake up calls on climate change, the declarations of emergency, and the ‘code reds’.

“If the upcoming COP28 climate summit doesn’t deliver drastic cuts in global fossil fuel use and emissions then we can officially call the 2020s the Age of Stupid.”

The UAE is host of this year’s COP summit, something which has been called into question given its plans to increase fossil fuel production and consumption.

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Meanwhile, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company - one of the world's biggest oil companies - is leading the COP talks.

The UAE has a stated aim to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Meanwhile, Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, said of its analysis: “The scientific evidence is overwhelming: we will continue to see more climate records and more intense and frequent extreme weather events impacting society and ecosystems, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases.”