There is a high probability that 2024 will also see record temperatures, while the past year concludes a decade of record heat.
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Climate reports follow one another and so do the warnings from scientists. The year 2023 has shattered new heat records, confirms the latest report from the World Meteorological Organization, Tuesday March 19. Thiss temperatures are leading the planet to the brink of collapse, warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday. “The Earth is sending out a distress call, he said. Fossil fuel pollution is pushing climate chaos off the beaten path. The impact of all this is brutal and accelerates with deadly force. Thousands of deaths, millions of displaced people, poor harvests and enormous economic losses. Every fraction of a degree of global warming impacts the future of life on Earth.”
The year 2023 was in fact the hottest year ever recorded, with an average temperature of 1.45° above the reference level of the pre-industrial era. There is a high probability, estimates the UN, that the year 2024 will break this record again. Unfortunately, when the thermometer panics, the damage to ecosystems also pushes the planet into unexplored territory. The figures published Tuesday attest to this. The rate of rise in average ocean levels over the past decade is twice that of 20 years ago.
“Give the planet a lifeline”
The world’s reference glaciers have suffered the greatest loss of ice ever recorded since 1950. Difficulties which particularly concern the glaciers of North America and Europe. The extent of sea ice in Antarctica has also never been lower. Compared to the end of last winter, it has lost another million square kilometers in surface area. This is 25 times the area of Switzerland. But there is still time, “to extend a lifeline to the planet”according to the UN Secretary General.
There is a glimmer of light in the report published Tuesday. Renewable energy production capacities in 2023 increased by almost 50% year-on-year. This is the greatest progress observed in recent decades. This is encouraging but it is only the beginning, recalls the World Meteorological Organization. To stay on a 1.5°C trajectory, global annual investments in climate finance must increase sixfold.