UN agencies are asking for help to protect the most vulnerable from an unprecedented El Niño

“The strength of the current El Niño event may be unprecedented – literally, unmonitorable that we have been using for the past four decades – and will peak towards the end of 2026, however the impact will be felt long afterward,” said Celeste Saulo, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

According to the latest Global Seasonal Climate Update from WMO, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific – the epicenter of the extreme weather phenomenon El Niño – may rise to 3.8℃ above average between November 2026 and January 2027.

Although a Pacific Ocean surface temperature anomaly of 0.5℃ above normal is enough to trigger an El Niño warning by the WMO, Saulo emphasized concerns that the impact of an El Niño triggered by a temperature difference of 3.8℃ is unprecedented.

Never before

The previous El Niño associated with a 3℃ temperature anomaly had had “an enormous impact around the world”, however “we’ve gone beyond that, out of our records, out of our statistics of what we can expect”, emphasized the head of the agency.

“We are already seeing extreme weather events and expect these to increase as El Niño intensifies,” Saulo said.

“But a powerful El Niño does not have to be the cause of a humanitarian disaster. We have scientific predictions, early warnings to save lives and protect livelihoods.”

Echoing Ms Saulo’s call for preventive measures to increase the resilience of the world’s most vulnerable communities, the UN’s emergency aid chief, Tom Fletcher, described the new El Niño as a “giant…disasters that are likely to hit Latin America, eastern and southern Africa, Asia and the Pacific with extreme heat, drought and floods”.

Funding to prevent disasters

The next two weeks will be crucial to prevent a worsening of the El Niño-related humanitarian crisis, Fletcher said, adding that Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya urgently needs funding and emergency supplies before the heavy rains arrive.

In the southern Africathe priority is sending seeds and protecting livestock, meanwhile Central America need immediate support to protect livelihoods.

Throughout Asia and the Pacificcountries must prepare for a variety of climate shocks, including droughts, floods and hurricanes.

“It would be an incredible failure to see this crisis unfold, hear the predictions of experts, but still squander the opportunity to protect the people affected,” Mr. Fletcher warned.

Some 50 million people could face increased hunger due to this weather phenomenon, he stressed, before citing an African Development Bank estimate that this would cost African countries between $10 and $20 billion “and reduce GDP by between one and two percent”.

UN fund injection

To support resilience efforts, the top UN aid official announced that he had distributed more than $50 million from the fund Central Emergency Response Fund to help 11 countries on the front lines, incl Chad, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.

The long-term impacts “will be felt for months and perhaps years to come,” Fletcher continued, citing the additional stress placed on the humanitarian system by global supply chain crises in the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea, linked respectively to the war between Iran and the United States and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.