The world didn’t pass its health check-up
Against a backdrop of killer floods, destructive droughts and severe heatwaves, over a billion people celebrated Earth Day on 22 April 2023 and demonstrated support to protect the planet from things like pollution. The ‘State of the Global Climate 2022’(opens in new window) report released a few days before the yearly event only confirmed what many people already knew: weather was as bad as it seemed. “2022 was a year of extremes for the planet – and this continues the trend set in previous years,” Omar Baddour, head of the Climate Monitoring and Policy Division at the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told ‘CNN’(opens in new window).
Headed towards climate tipping points?
“While greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the climate continues to change, populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas commented in a press release(opens in new window). The new report explores several key climate indicators: greenhouse gases; temperatures; sea level rise; ocean heat and acidification; sea ice; and glaciers. It presents the effects of climate change and extreme weather. The WMO report includes a story map(opens in new window) that offers information on how the climate change indicators are progressing, on extreme events, and on risks and impacts. In addition, it includes ways to alleviate the impacts of a changing climate through both mitigation and adaptation. In a nutshell, the costs resulting from droughts, floods and heatwaves keep rising. Over for the past 8 years, global mean temperatures have been the highest on record. We also find sea level and ocean heat at record levels.
Europe failed its health check, too
The news is especially bad for Europe. Temperatures have risen at more than twice the global average over the past 30 years. This represents the highest such increase of any continent. Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Portugal had their hottest years on record. The key findings reinforce UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message in the press statement: “We have the tools, the knowledge, and the solutions. But we must pick up the pace. We need accelerated climate action with deeper, faster emissions cuts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius. We also need massively scaled-up investments in adaptation and resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable countries and communities who have done the least to cause the crisis.” Also published in April was a report(opens in new window) by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service that focuses on how climate change impacted Europe in the past calendar year. 2022 was record-breaking for key events: warmest summer on record, record loss of glacier ice from the European Alps and record sunshine duration. “The droughts and level of heatwaves that we saw throughout 2022 were quite remarkable,” Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha Burgess told ‘CNN’. “This is really a wake up call that climate change isn’t a future problem, it is a current problem. And we need to adapt as quickly as possible.”