A rapidly intensifying El Niño climate event threatens to persist until February 2027, the United Nations warned, raising serious risks of floods, droughts and extreme heat worldwide.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said Thursday that El Niño was being “supersized before our eyes,” placing the entire global economy in its path.
“The world is in the danger zone of extreme weather,” Guterres said, adding that “the race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people.”
Celeste Saulo, secretary general of the UN’s World Meteorological Organization, said the event “has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world.”
“We are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods and we expect these impacts to increase as El Niño intensifies,” Saulo added.
Countries across Asia-Pacific and Latin America are bearing the brunt of the immediate impact, though commodity markets worldwide face significant disruption across food and energy sectors.
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are experiencing severe drought and erratic weather, linked in an August report by Oxfam to El Niño, resulting in serious crop losses across the region.
Indonesia is battling devastating wildfires, while a weaker monsoon season in India is expected to impact the growth of rice, sugar, cotton, soybean and other key agricultural products.
Officials in Peru say fishing of anchovy, commonly used in livestock feed, has faced a “devastating blow,” signalling wider pressure on global food supply chains heading into 2027.
Sea surface temperatures reached more than 2 degrees Celsius above normal in July, ranging between 2.2 and 2.6 degrees above normal from late July to mid-August, according to WMO research.
Subsurface ocean temperatures showed “even more exceptional warmth,” the WMO said, recording readings more than 8 degrees Celsius above average during July and early August.
An El Niño event occurs when sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific rise 0.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, and this current event far exceeds that threshold.
Energy markets face unpredictable consequences, with potential disruption expected across hydropower, wind and solar output, oil and gas production, refining operations and mining activity globally.
El Niño, meaning “little boy” in Spanish, is a naturally occurring climate pattern that oscillates with La Niña, or “little girl,” roughly every two to seven years.