Earth on the brink of a key warming threshold after a dizzying year

Last year – the warmest on record – shattered a number of climate records and gave new meaning to the phrase “off the scale”, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday, warning that the planet is now on the verge to exceed a key warming threshold. .

In their annual “State of the Global Climate” report, researchers from the World Meteorological Organization outlined how extreme weather events in 2023 wreaked havoc on millions of people around the world and caused billions of dollars in economic losses.

The WMO said records had been broken, and in some cases destroyed, for indicators such as greenhouse gas levels, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, sea ice cover Antarctica and the retreat of glaciers.

It confirmed 2023 as the warmest year on record and said the period from 2014 to 2023 also reflects the warmest 10-year period on record.

The global average temperature in 2023 was 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, researchers said, slightly below the key warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The 1.5 degrees Celsius level is widely recognized as an indicator of when climate impacts become increasingly harmful to people and the planet, as outlined in the historic Paris Agreement.

Extreme temperatures are fueled by the climate crisis, the main driver of which is the use of fossil fuels.

“We have never been so close, albeit currently on a temporary basis, to the 1.5°C lower limit set by the Paris Agreement on climate change,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement.

“The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world,” he said.

“Climate change is about much more than temperatures. What we have witnessed in 2023, particularly with the unprecedented ocean heat, retreating glaciers and loss of Antarctic sea ice, is of particular concern.”

The report comes shortly after the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said that for the first time the world had exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius in an entire year.

The EU climate monitoring results, published last month, do not, however, represent a break from the 2015 Paris Agreement. The climate agreement aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels” in the long term.

Nonetheless, scientists have repeatedly highlighted the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst of the climate crisis.

“The Earth is issuing a distress call,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday.

“The latest report on the state of the global climate shows a planet on the brink of collapse. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts,” she added.

“The sirens are sounding on all major indicators… Some records are not just topping the charts, they are breaking through the charts. And the changes are accelerating.”

The world has already warmed by around 1.1 degrees Celsius after more than a century of burning fossil fuels, along with unequal and unsustainable use of energy and land.

The WMO report said that on an average day in 2023, nearly a third of the world’s oceans were hit by a marine heatwave, damaging vital ecosystems and food systems.

However, renewable energy production has been described as a “glimmer of hope”.

The WMO said renewable energy generation had moved to the forefront of climate action in 2023, citing its potential to help meet decarbonisation goals.

In fact, researchers said renewable capacity addition increased nearly 50% in 2023 to a total of 510 gigawatts. The agency said this was the highest rate observed in the past two decades.