New Delhi: The year that passed was not just hot. It was the hottest by far than any year ever recorded and broke several major global climate records, confirms yet another report: the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO’s) annual State of the Global Climate report released on March 19.
And the year we’ve entered may not hold much respite either: 2024 is likely to get worse, the report has warned. With increasing greenhouse gas levels, global and sea surface temperatures, sea levels, and depleting Antarctic and Arctic sea ice cover and glacier retreats also breaking records in 2023, the UN body has issued a “Red Alert” to the world.
The good news is that renewable energy generation has been surging. Funding to tackle and adapt to climate change is also higher now than it was before – but it’s still not enough. However, not acting would be far worse, with damages mounting to USD 1,266 trillion between 2025 and 2100 alone, according to the WMO report.
The report comes just in time to inform discussions at the crucial Copenhagen Climate Ministerial which kicked off in Denmark’s Copenhagen on (March 21). The Ministerial is the first official meeting after the last Conference of Parties (COP28); here, climate leaders and ministers from around 40 countries will discuss the outcomes of COP28 and the expectations for the upcoming COP29 at Baku, Azerbaijan.
On March 21, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) also launched the “Weather Kids campaign” – created in partnership with WMO and The Weather Channel – in which children, dressed up as meteorologists, call for urgent climate action for their future.
2023, a year that shattered heat records
Last year shattered several heat records: in India, across Asia and the world. February 2023 was the hottest on record in India since 1901, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) announced. And it would get hotter, the IMD predicted.
It was right. India reeled under a severe heat wave in April 2023. On May 17, climate scientists part of the World Weather Attribution group found that human-induced climate change made the April heat wave across India and Bangladesh 30 times more likely. The June that followed was the hottest June that south peninsular India had ever witnessed.
July broke more records. July 3 was the world’s hottest day ever recorded, revealed climate data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Around mid July, NASA’s top scientists told reporters that the month was likely to be the warmest month on record in “hundreds, if not thousands, of years”, and that the heat would only get worse. The first three weeks of July were the warmest three-week period ever recorded, as per a report released by the World Meteorological Organisation on July 27.
In October 2023, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that the year was set to become the hottest year ever recorded, with September being the warmest ever on record. The Service also noted that December 2023 was the warmest December on record globally.
Several agencies and organizations released reports and statements in January confirming that 2023 was a year that broke heat records. The IMD said in January this year that 2023 was the second warmest year for India since 1901. The Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that 2023 was the warmest calendar year in global temperature data records dating back to 1850.
Hottest year in 174 years of record-keeping
WMO, a body under the UN, has also confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year to be recorded ever since climate records began in 1850. In its annual State of the Climate report released on March 19, the WMO noted that the shift from La Niña to El Niño conditions in mid-2023 contributed to the rapid rise in temperature from 2022 to 2023.
“Decreased monsoon rainfall in southeast Asia is associated with El Niño,” the report said. “Onset of the monsoon over Kerala, India, occurred on 8 June, 7 days later than normal. By the end of September, India had received 94% of its typical monsoon rainfall…Higher than normal rainfall totals, however, were observed along the lower course of the Indus River and in central India.”
These are some of the major take homes of the report, ranging from heat records the world broke in 2023, and other impacts that the year witnessed due to human-induced climate change:
- The global mean near-surface temperature in 2023 was 1.45 ± 0.12 °C above the pre-industrial 1850-1900 average. That’s higher than the last hottest years (2016, at 1.29 ± 0.12 °C; and 2020 at 1.27±0.13 °C).
- The last nine years – from 2015 to 2023 – were the nine warmest years on record.
- Widespread marine heatwaves raised global average sea-surface temperatures, which were at a record high from April onwards, with records in July, August and September broken by a huge margin.
- The global mean sea level reached a record high as per satellite records (since 1993), reflecting continued ocean warming, and the melting of glaciers and ice sheets.
- Satellite data showed that Antarctic sea-ice extent reached a record low (since 1979) in February 2023 and remained at a record low for June till early November. Arctic sea ice too remained well below normal.
- Several glaciers retreated to a historic low: the global set of reference glaciers (a collection of about 40 glaciers across the world which are studied to understand both the accumulation and loss of ice) for the hydrological year 2022-2023 experienced the largest loss of ice ever since records began in 1950.
- The observed concentrations of three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record levels in 2022. These continued to increase in 2023.
- Weather and climate extremes, along with other factors, have doubled the number of people who are facing acute food insecurity across the world: from 149 million people before the COVID-19 pandemic, to 333 million people in 2023 (in 78 monitored countries by the World Food Programme).
A ‘Red Alert’
Extreme weather events – heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, cyclones – were many, and impacted people and communities across the world, the report highlighted.
“Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, in a press release. “The WMO community is sounding the Red Alert to the world.”
“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 said.
However, there is one silver lining.
Renewable energy generation is surging. In 2023, renewable capacity additions increased by almost 50% from 2022 for a total of 510 gigawatts (GW), the report noted.
“Such growth marks the highest rate observed in the past two decades and, as the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicates, demonstrates the potential to achieve the clean energy goal set at COP28 to triple renewable energy capacity globally to reach 11,000 GW by 2030,” the report said.
In 2021-2022, global climate-related finance flows – funding for adapting to and mitigating climate change – also increased. It reached almost USD 1.3 trillion, nearly double when compared to 2019-2020 levels, the report noted. However, it’s still not enough. According to the report, “annual climate finance investments need to grow by more than six times, reaching almost USD 9 trillion by 2030 and a further USD 10 trillion through to 2050”. Funding for adaptation strategies, particularly, is lagging behind.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act. The cost of inaction is far higher, despite the large financing gap, the report said. Between 2025 and 2100, the report estimates that the cost of inaction – that is, the damages that would incur if we do not invest in climate finance – would be a whopping USD 1,266 trillion.
“This figure is, however, likely to be a dramatic underestimate of the true cost of inaction, since it does not capture losses to nature and biodiversity, and those induced by conflict and migration, among others. Indeed, the cost of inaction only promises to rise with insufficient mitigation and inadequate adaptation,” the report noted.
More reason for action
The WMO’s report is important because it will inform discussions at the climate ministerial meeting that is being held in Copenhagenon March 21 and 22. The Copenhagen Climate Ministerial, as it is called, is the first political high-level meeting of climate ministers since the last Conference of Parties (the world’s biggest climate conference) COP28, which was held in Dubai, UAE, last November. At the ministerial, climate leaders and ministers from around 40 countries will discuss the outcomes of COP28 and the expectations from the upcoming COP29 at Baku, Azerbaijan.
At the start of the ministerial on March 21, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Chair Jim Skea said that the scale and pace of climate change pose unprecedented challenges for humanity.
“As confirmed by WMO, 2023 was the hottest year on record, with particularly startling extremes in ocean temperatures…Our latest report showed that with every increment of warming the world will become more and more dangerous,” he said. “Beyond 1.5°C warming, we will see new risks will emerge associated with sea level rise, permafrost degradation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, more extreme weather, food insecurity.”
And the IPCC’s recent work – in terms of energy demand, technology, and more – “has shown that we have the means and the tools to address these challenges, if we choose to use them”, he added.
Skea also touched on what can be expected from the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle that will be unveiled in the years to come. In early 2027, the IPCC should release a Special Report on Cities and Climate Change; and by the end of 2027, a methodology report on carbon dioxide removal technologies and carbon capture utilization and storage “which will inform the submission of national inventories”, he said. “And during 2028, the Working Groups’ Co-Chairs hope to have finalised the three Working Group Reports.”
The WMO’s annual State of Climate report on March 19 also came two days before the launch UNDP’s “Weather Kids campaign” which will air on news channels in more than 80 countries.
“It’s not just a weather report to us,” the children say at the end. “It is our future.”
