UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. (Photo: VNA)

Recent data shows that the current extent of sea ice at the South Pole is 1.5 million square kilometers less than the average for this season and ice is melting in Antarctica three times faster than the rate in the early 1990s.

The movement of waters around Antarctica distributes heat, nutrients and carbon around the world, helping to regulate our climate and regional weather patterns, Guterres told correspondents outside the UN Security Council.

He added that the system is slowing as the southern Ocean grows warmer and less dense. Further slowdown — or entire breakdown — would spell catastrophe, he said, adding that with no let-up in fossil fuel extraction, the world is heading towards a calamitous three-degree Celsius temperature rise by the end of the century, and the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets will cross a deadly tipping point.

COP 28 is scheduled to be held in Dubai, the UAE, from November 30 to December 12.