2023 broke every single climate indicator, says World Meteorological Organization

New Delhi: World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) latest report reveals record-high levels of greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, acidification, and sea level rise in 2023. Titled ‘State of the Global Climate 2023,’ it confirms 2023 as the warmest year on record, with temperatures 1.45° celcius above pre-industrial levels.

“Sirens are blaring across all major indicators... Some records are not just chart-topping, they are chart-busting. And changes are speeding up,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5 degrees celsius lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change. The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world... The climate crisis is the defining challenge that humanity faces,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said.

“Climate change is about much more than temperatures. What we witnessed in 2023, especially with the unprecedented ocean warmth, glacier retreat, and Antarctic Sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern,” she added.

COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber said the world has no time to spare.

To limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, countries must deliver enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), economy-wide emissions reductions, and investments in nature and adaptation, he stressed.

Concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record-high observed levels, the report said.

At 417.9 parts per million (ppm), the global average concentration of carbon dioxide in 2022 was 50 per cent higher than in the pre-industrial era, trapping heat in the atmosphere. Real-time data showed the CO2 concentration continued to rise in 2023 while the global mean sea level reached a record high.

The rate of sea level rise in the last 10 years (2014–2023) has more than doubled since the first decade of the satellite record (1993 – 2002), the WMO said.

Antarctic sea-ice extent reached an absolute record low in February. The annual maximum extent was around 1 million square kilometres below the previous record low maximum.

The WMO report also cited figures showing that the number of people who are acutely food insecure worldwide has more than doubled, from 149 million people before the COVID-19 pandemic to 333 million people in 2023 (in 78 monitored countries by the World Food Programme).

WFP Global hunger levels remained unchanged from 2021 to 2022.

However, these are still far above pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels: In 2022, 9.2 per cent of the global population (735.1 million people) were undernourished.