As summer heat waves are breaking temperature records across the globe, Washington Governor Jay Inslee is warning that climate change is “pounding on the door."

“The climate change problem, the fuse has been burning for decades, and now the climate change bomb has gone off," Inslee said in an interview on ABC’s This Week with Martha Raddatz. "The scientists are telling us that this is the new age. This is the age of consequences because whatever we thought of climate change last year, we now understand that the beast is at the door. We knew this beast of climate change was coming for us, but now, it’s pounding on the door."

Within the next five years, global temperatures are predicted to rise beyond an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which said in May that there is now a 66 percent chance of reaching the average by 2027.

The Paris Climate Accords of 2015 set to limit greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global temperatures from rising above 1.5C. While the goal is still attainable, data in the WMO report and from recent increasing temperatures reflect a failure among world leaders to limit fossil fuel usage.

“What the scientific community is telling us now, is that the earth is screaming at us, and that is the situation. I talked to a leading international scientist the other day who told me that we knew this was going to happen to us, but it’s happening to us maybe two decades earlier than we really thought."

Inslee ran for president in 2020 on a platform based around combatting climate change, particularly reliance on the fossil fuel industry. While green energy alternatives such as solar power and electric vehicles are becoming more widespread, Inslee said that drastically cutting fossil fuel usage is the “only solution to this massive assault on humanity.”

“This is not just something for the federal government. States can act. Our state is acting. We have 23 states in the U.S. Climate Alliance. And this is necessary,” Inslee said. “We’ve had tremendous action under President Biden’s leadership with the Inflation Reduction Act. And, unfortunately, the Republicans are trying to repeal that now. But we need to go further and faster. And states can go further and faster. And we are doing that.”