The UN disclosed on Thursday that this year (2023) is expected to be the hottest on record, urging swift action to address global warming and mitigate the widespread havoc it leaves in its wake.
In a cautionary statement, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization highlighted that 2023 has shattered multiple climate records, resulting in extreme weather and a “trail of devastation and despair.”
‘It’s a deafening cacophony of broken records,’ said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.
‘Greenhouse gas levels are record high. Global temperatures are record-high. Sea level rise is record high. Antarctic sea ice is record low.’
The WMO released its preliminary 2023 State of the Global Climate report as global leaders convened in Dubai for the UN COP28 climate conference, facing increasing pressure to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and address global warming.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said the record heat findings ‘should send shivers down the spines of world leaders’.
Scientists caution that the stakes have never been higher, with the ability to control warming slipping through humanity’s grasp.
Enacted in 2015, the Paris Climate Accords aimed to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with an even more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees Celsius if achievable.
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But in its report, the WMO said 2023 data to the end of October showed that this year was already around 1.4C above the pre-industrial baseline.
The agency is due to publish its final State of the Global Climate 2023 report in the first half of 2024.
But it said the difference between the first 10 months of this year and 2016 and 2020 — which previously topped the charts as the warmest years on record — ‘is such that the final two months are very unlikely to affect the ranking’.
The report also showed that the past nine years were the hottest years since modern records began.
‘These are more than just statistics,’ Taalas said, warning that ‘we risk losing the race to save our glaciers and to rein in sea level rise’.
‘We cannot return to the climate of the 20th century, but we must act now to limit the risks of an increasingly inhospitable climate in this and the coming centuries.’
The WMO warned that the warming El Nino weather phenomenon, which emerged mid-year, was ‘likely to further fuel the heat in 2024’.
This phenomenon arises from the natural climate pattern, often tied to a surge in global warmth, leading to an elevation in temperatures across the world in the subsequent year.
According to the initial findings, concentrations of the three primary greenhouse gases responsible for trapping heat—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—reached unprecedented levels in 2022. Early data suggests that these levels have further increased this year.
The agency noted a 50 percent increase in carbon dioxide levels compared to the pre-industrial era, stating that temperatures will continue to climb for an extended period, even with substantial emission cuts.