The global energy system is broken and bringing the world ever closer to catastrophe, the United Nations chief António Guterres has said in another of his increasingly grim warnings about the international response to climate change.

“Fossil fuels are a dead end – environmentally and economically,” Guterres said while launching the 2021 World Meteorological Organisation’s State of the Global Climate report.

“The war in Ukraine and its immediate effects on energy prices is yet another wake-up call.

“The only sustainable future is a renewable one. We must end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition, before we incinerate our only home. Time is running out.”

Guterres’s warnings were echoed in Australia by five medical colleges from across Australia and New Zealand, with more than 56,000 members, who have written to federal, state and territory leaders and energy companies calling for Australia to replace coal power by 2030.

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Dr Karen Price, president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, said the letter was not political, but in keeping with the responsibility of doctors to advocate for good health policy.

The letter signed by Price as well as the representatives of the Australian and New Zealand colleges of obstetricians and gynaecologists, psychiatrists, ophthalmologists and exercise physicians, says that fossil fuel air pollution causes heart attacks, strokes, lung cancers and other lung diseases, and is now recognised as one of the world’s leading causes of sickness and death. In Australia it has been estimated to cause 1451 premature deaths and 24,881 years of life lost per year.

“Pollution from Australian coal-burning power stations was recently estimated to kill 785 people every year, as well as causing 14,434 instances of children experiencing asthma symptoms and 845 babies to be born with low birth weight, which can have lifelong adverse health consequences, leading to around $640m-$1.4bn in health costs per year,” says the letter.