World on 'red alert' over the misery and mayhem wreaked by climate change

A fire rages in bushland near the West Australian city of Wannaroo north of Perth in November 2023. Photo: DFES via AP

The world has been put on “red alert” over the misery and mayhem wreaked by climate change, as a new report warned that 2023 “gave ominous new significance to the phrase ‘off the charts’”.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said last year they saw multiple records broken — and in some cases smashed  — as wildfires, droughts, heatwaves, floods and cyclones upended the daily lives of millions of people and cost billions of euro worth of damage.