By Charlie Wilson
Off the charts
The recently published World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) State of the Global Climate 2023 report has confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record, giving an “ominous” new meaning to the phrase “off the charts.”
- 2023 saw an average global near-surface temperature of 1.45°C, making 2023 the hottest on record at the end of the warmest 10-year period on record.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts also found that January 2024 capped a 12-month period that exceeded the 1.5°C target for the first time.
- 2023 was particularly alarming for ocean heat, with nearly a third of the ocean in the midst of a marine heatwave at any time during the year. Global sea-surface temperatures reached record heights for April and every month after, with July, August, and September especially hot. Ocean heat content also broke records, and more than 90% of the ocean experienced a heatwave for at least a portion of the year.
- Glaciers lost more ice than any year since record-keeping began in 1950,
- Antarctica’s sea-ice extent at the end of winter was lower than the previous record by 1 million square kilometres.
- 2023 also saw record sea-level rise and ocean acidification.
- Records were broken for the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide all reached record levels in 2022, and the atmospheric concentrations of all three continued to rise in 2023.
- Carbon dioxide levels in 2023 were 50% higher than before the industrial revolution.
Extreme Weather
2023 saw several especially devastating climate-fuelled disasters that are becoming a “new normal”;
- lethal flooding from Cyclone Daniel in Libya; Tropical Cyclone Mocha, which displaced 1.7 million people in the region around the Bay of Bengal;
- an extreme heatwave in southern Europe and North Africa;
- a record wildfire season in Canada that smothered several North American cities in heavy smoke;
- the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than 100 years in Hawaii.
Human impacts.
When Cyclone Freddy, one of the longest-lasting cyclones ever, struck Madagascar, Mozambique, and Malawi in February, it not only displaced thousands of people, it flooded vast swaths of agricultural fields and damaged crops in other ways.
Growing food insecurity, population displacement now running at 20 million people a year globally, and biodiversity loss, is exacerbated by extreme weather events; which impacts on war and conflict, economic downturns, and high food prices in a vicious spiral of mutual causation.
As a result, the number of people suffering from acute food insecurity grew to 333 million in 2023, more than double the 149 million before the pandemic.
Two steps backwards, one step forward?
Positive news;
- Renewable energy capacity increased by nearly 50% in 2023 compared with 2022, the highest rate of increase in 20 years and the beginning of a rising curve that is alarming fossil fuel interests; who face the serious prospect of significant losses on their investments.
- Global climate finance nearly doubled from 2019-2020 to almost $1.3 trillion, but this was still only 1% of global gross domestic product. We should note that China is projected to invest twice as much in energy transition in 2024 as the US and EU put together.
- To keep heating below 1.5°C, finance needs to increase by nearly $9 trillion by 2030 and another $10 trillion by 2050. The estimated cost of doing nothing ($1,266 trillion from 2025-2100) is much higher, and we should note not only that the WMO said this was likely a “dramatic underestimate” but also consider what damage that figure represents in human terms.
The UN is calling for accelerated action;
- leadership from the G20 nations toward a just energy transition;
- countries proposing 1.5°C-compliant climate plans by 2025;
- increased climate finance flows toward the developing world, including for adaptation and Loss and Damage;
- universal coverage by early warning systems by 2027;
- and “accelerating the inevitable end of the fossil fuel age.”
If, instead, fossil fuel interests manage to get Donald Trump elected US President on a programme of “drill, baby, drill” in November, and the US goes full rogue state in smashing up the UN Paris framework, promoting mini me acolytes like Bolsonaro in Brazil and Milei in Argentina, the world will be propelled faster towards disaster. This will be politically clarifying, and could cause any number of political rifts and realignments; but the world will pay an immense price for it.