Climate and environment updates: UN issues vital warning on avoiding climate disaster

The U.S. is experiencing the driest fall on record, which could potentially impact the quality of upcoming autumn harvests, experts told ABC News.

About 77% of the mainland U.S. is abnormally dry, and almost half of the country is experiencing drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The spatial pattern of the dry conditions varies widely across the continent, Josue Medellin-Azuara, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California Merced, told ABC News.

Improvement in the drought is not expected for most of the South, the Plains and parts of the Upper Midwest due to expected La Nina conditions this winter that would further reinforce the dryness, according to forecasts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

However, a lot of the crops in these regions that harvest in the fall had good growing conditions throughout the summer and are in the process of being harvested, meaning overall output should not be heavily impacted, Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and former chief economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told ABC News.

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it's canceling any product containing the pesticide dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate (DCPA), also known as Dacthal.

According to the EPA, their decision is based on comprehensive scientific studies that indicate potential thyroid toxicity linked to DCPA. The agency says research suggests that exposure to this pesticide during pregnancy can lead to changes in thyroid hormone levels in unborn children. Studies cited by the EPA indicate that these hormonal changes could be associated with various health concerns, including low birth weight, impaired brain development and reduced IQ. That research suggests that these developmental challenges may also have long-term effects on motor skills.

DCPA is used in the industrial farming of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and onions. While pregnant women working in agriculture are most at risk, pesticides can travel into neighboring communities via the air and runoff, putting non-agricultural workers at risk as well.

In a press release, EPA's assistant administrator for the office of chemical safety and pollution prevention, Michal Freedhoff, wrote, "With the final cancellation of DCPA, we're taking a definitive step to protect pregnant women and their unborn babies. The science showing the potential for irreversible harm to unborn babies' developing brains, in addition to other lifelong consequences from exposure, demands decisive action to remove this dangerous chemical from the marketplace," Freedhoff added.

-ABC News Climate Unit's Matthew Glasser

The number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the United States keeps growing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has added Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton to their official 2024 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disaster list. The agency also added a tornado outbreak.

This brings the year-to-date total for billion-dollar disasters to 24 unique events. That's the second-highest total for the same period, only eclipsed by 2023, when there were 27 billion-dollar disasters in the same time frame.

The final damage costs for Hurricane Helene and Milton are still being determined, but NOAA says they will both surpass the billion-dollar threshold..

According to NOAA, tropical cyclones (or hurricanes) cause more damage than any other kind of weather disaster, with over $1.3 trillion in damages since 1980.

-ABC News Climate Unit's Dan Manzo and Matthew Glasser

The United Nations is calling out the world's largest polluting nations for failing to take decisive action in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions significantly. And they're warning that it will require nothing short of "a quantum leap in ambition" if we are to avoid the worst-case global warming scenarios.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme's Emissions Gap Report 2024, aptly titled, "No more hot air … please!" the world has made little progress in reversing the use of fossil fuels and faces twice as much warming as agreed to during the Paris Climate Agreement. The report finds that unless we significantly reduce our global emissions and do so quickly, the planet is headed toward a 3.1° C (5.6° F) increase in warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

The annual report looks at countries' emission reduction promises and where we are in meeting those goals. The report said that despite the urgent need to reduce GHG emissions, global emissions actually set a new record in 2023, increasing by 1.3%.

However, the report made a point to emphasize that the majority of global emissions are coming from G20 countries, specifically China, the United States and India. Only the U.S. showed a slight reduction in emissions in 2023, down 1.4%. China and India saw an increase of 5.2% and 6.1% respectively. Both countries produce many of the products purchased and used by American consumers, and some experts say their emissions are our emissions.

In 2015, during a summit in Paris, the majority of the world's governments agreed to work toward limiting global warming to 1.5° C (2.7° F). This new report said it would require a 42% cut in yearly GHG emissions by 2030 if we want to try to avoid surpassing that milestone.

World leaders will meet in Azerbaijan next month for the UN climate summit COP29 to work on meeting the goals first agreed to in Paris.

-ABC News Climate Unit's Matthew Glasser