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STORY: As the world emerges from its warmest northern hemisphere summer since records began, world leaders, business leaders, celebrities and activists are converging on New York for Climate Week.

Organizers of the annual gathering say we are now "in the age of urgency" and "it's time" to focus attention on the climate crisis, and the need for greater investment in clean energy and net zero technologies.

Climate Week coincides with the city's hosting of the yearly United Nations General Assembly, which brings heads of state and top government officials together with private-sector leaders.

The boreal summer of June to August this year blew past last summer, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service or C3S.

That increases the likelihood that 2024 will outrank 2023 as the planet's warmest year on record, when global average temperatures soared to a sweltering 1.46C above preindustrial levels.

C3S warned that unless countries urgently reduce their planet-heating emissions, extreme weather will quote, "only become more intense".

Ahead of the Climate Week event and U.N. summit, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Reuters that the phaseout of fossil fuels is both necessary and inevitable.

"But we absolutely need to have the determined political will to reduce emissions drastically in this decade and to end this a complete addiction to fossil fuels. The phaseout of fossil fuels is necessary, and I would say it is inevitable.''

Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels remain the main cause of climate change, which continued to contribute to disasters this past year.

In Sudan, flooding from heavy rains in August affected more than 300,000 people and brought cholera to the already war-torn country.

Elsewhere, scientists, confirmed climate change is driving a severe ongoing drought in Europe, and intensifying typhoons like Gaemi and Yagi which tore through Southeast Asia this summer, leaving destruction and death in their wake.

Climate Week organizers say they are aiming to convince and inspire hesitant companies and governments to dig deeper to provide the finance and set the policies needed to shift to a low-carbon economy.

The event has also become a focal point for protestors eager to call out what they see as lawmaker and leader inaction, alongside industry greenwashing.