2023 was recorded as the hottest year with a 1.5-degree-C increase in Earth’s surface temperature, according to EU Climate Monitor.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3s) reported that climate change had intensified heatwaves, causing droughts and wildfires around the planet. It was said to have pushed the global thermometer to 1.48 degrees Celsius, which is above the preindustrial benchmark.
Samantha Burgess, deputy head of the Copernicus Climate Change Services said that it was the first year that all days were over 1 degree warmer than the pre-industrial period.
“Temperatures during 2023 likely exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years,” she said.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the year was a mere foretaste of the disastrous future ahead if people choose to take climate change for granted.
Nearly half the year’s temperature exceeded the 1.5-degree-C limit. But even if Earth’s average surface temperature exceeds 1.5 °C this year, it doesn’t mean that the world has failed to meet the Paris Agreement target of capping global warming.
Such global warming has caused a lot of distress to many countries. Some notable examples include the massive fires in Canada, extreme droughts in Africa and the Middle East, intolerable summer heatwaves in Europe, the United States, and China, and winter warmth in Australia and South America.
Professor Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading Climate Change said that “such events will continue to get worse until we transition away from fossil fuels and reach net-zero emissions.”
“We will continue to suffer the consequences of our inaction today for generations,” he added.
