A wind shift fanned flames during a scheduled burn at Ross Moore Lake in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, on July 28, 2023.
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A series of climate records last year gave new meaning to the phrase “off the charts”, the United Nations Meteorological Service said on Tuesday, warning that the planet is now on the brink of exceeding a key warming threshold.
In its annual State of the World Climate report, researchers from the World Meteorological Organization described 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 were set, and in some cases broken, for indicators such as greenhouse gas levels, ocean warming and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat.
Confirmed 2023 as the hottest year on record and said the period between 2014 and 2023 also reflects the hottest 10-year period on record.
The global average temperature in 2023 was 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the researchers said, marginally below the baseline warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The 1.5 degree Celsius level is widely recognized as an indicator of when climate impacts are becoming increasingly harmful to people and the planet, as outlined in the landmark Paris agreement.
Sirens are sounding on all major indicators. … Some records aren’t just top-notch, they fall apart. And the changes are accelerating.
Antonio Guterres
Secretary General of the United Nations
Extreme temperatures are fueled by the climate crisis, the main driver of which is the burning of fossil fuels.
“We have never been so close—albeit on a temporary basis at the moment—to the 1.5°C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world,” he said.
“Climate change is much more than temperatures. What we saw in 2023, especially with the unprecedented warming of the oceans, the retreat of glaciers and the loss of Antarctic sea ice, is of particular concern.”
“The sirens are ringing”
The report comes shortly after the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Agency he said the world exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time in an entire year.
However, the EU climate watchdog’s findings, published last month, did not represent a breach of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The climate deal aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably within 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels’ in the long term.
However, scientists have repeatedly reinforced the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst of the climate crisis.
Women walk through flood waters in Beledweyne, central Somalia, on May 12, 2023.
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“The Earth is issuing a distress call,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.
“The latest State of the World Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is driving climate chaos off the charts,” he added.
“Sirens are sounding on all the major indicators. … Some records aren’t just tops, they’re falling. And change is accelerating.”
The world is already warming up around 1.1 degrees Celsius after more than a century of burning fossil fuels, along with uneven and unsustainable energy and land use.
A “ray of hope”
The WMO report said that on an average day in 2023, nearly a third of the world’s oceans would be inundated by a marine heat wave, damaging vital ecosystems and food systems.
However, renewable energy production was described as a “ray of hope”.
The WMO said renewable energy production had been put at the forefront of climate action in 2023, citing its potential to help achieve decarbonisation targets.
Indeed, the researchers said renewable capacity additions are expected to increase by nearly 50% in 2023 to a total of 510 gigawatts. The agency said this was the highest rate seen in two decades.