UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that this report shows the planet is “on the brink”.
There is a “high probability” that 2024 will be the warmest year on record, after the decade ending in 2023 broke a heat record that pushes the planet “to the brink”, warned a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The study confirmed preliminary data showing that unprecedented heat levels were recorded in 2023.
The UN agency, based in Geneva, also pointed out that the decade ending in 2023 was the warmest since measurements began.
Several records for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, temperature, sea level rise, and glacier retreat were “shattered”.
“We cannot say for certain” but “I would say there is a high probability that 2024 will surpass the record set in 2023,” said Omar Baddour, WMO climate monitoring official, during the report presentation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that this report shows the planet is “on the brink”.
The year 2023 was the warmest in the 174 years of recorded history, with the global average surface temperature being 1.45°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the WMO.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo indicated that the world has never been so close, albeit temporarily, to the lower limit of 1.5°C set by the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
“Climate change goes far beyond temperatures. What we witnessed in 2023, especially regarding ocean warming, glacier retreat, and unprecedented Antarctic sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern,” Saulo noted.
For Saulo, “the climate crisis is the essential challenge facing humanity”, and this report constitutes a “red alert”, as record levels were recorded in “each of the climate indicators”.
A particularly worrying marker, according to the WMO, is that 90% of the oceans experienced heatwaves at some point in the year.
Similarly, the global reference glacier set suffered the greatest ice loss recorded since 1950, and the extent of Antarctic sea ice was the lowest on record.
Another cause for concern is that the continued warming of the oceans, which expands water volume, combined with glacier melting, resulted in a sea level rise in 2023 to a maximum since satellite records began in 1993.
The WMO pointed out that over the past decade, the rate of global mean sea level rise was more than double that of the first decade this indicator was measured.
The organization indicated that these changes lead to extreme weather events such as droughts and floods, with serious repercussions such as population displacement, loss of biodiversity, and food insecurity.
According to the WMO report, the number of people experiencing acute food insecurity worldwide increased from 149 million before the COVID pandemic to 333 million in 2023.
On a positive note, the UN agency noted that “substantial energy transition is underway”, and last year, the capacity for renewable energy integration increased by 50% compared to 2022.
Guterres believes there is still an opportunity to keep long-term planetary temperature rise below the 1.5°C threshold to “avoid the worst of climate chaos”.
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