By Anders Lorenzen 

As the UN climate summit, COP28, kicked off in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday, the United Nations (UN) body the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) delivered another stark warning.  

In its provisional State of the Global Climate report, they confirmed, that not only is 2023 on track to be the warmest year on record by a large margin, but they also expect we will reach 1.4 degrees C of warming above pre-industrial levels. 

Even though there’s a month left of 2023, VMO feels confident enough to make the call that will leave us only 0.1 degrees C of breaching the 1.5 degrees C target that world leaders agreed upon in the Paris Agreement of 2015. The organisation labelled it as a ‘deafening cacophony’ of broken climate records.

This latest scientific analysis will undoubtedly increase pressure upon policy-makers and world leaders as, for the next two weeks, they will be striving to make progress on cutting emissions.

WMO Secretary-General Peterri Taalas laid the facts bare, stating: “Greenhouse gas levels are record high. Global temperatures are record-high. Sea level rise is record high. Antarctic sea ice record low.”

However, the agency explained that it may not be imminent that the world crosses that 1.5 degrees C ceiling because, for that to happen, the level of warming would need to be sustained for longer.

2023 – a year of records

But, even then, 2023 will be bearing witness to the fact that 1.4 degrees C is bad enough. This year the Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest winter maximum extent on record, with some 1 million square kilometres (1 km2) less sea ice than the previous record.  Swiss glaciers lost about 10% of their remaining volume for the past two years.  In Canada wildfires burned  over a record area, equating to about 5% of woodlands in the world’s second-largest country measured on landmass. 

These examples are some of the most severe climate impacts the world experienced in 2023, though endless examples could be cited of how the whole planet was ravaged by extreme weather events in 2023.

Scientists, climate advocates, governments around the world as well as ordinary citizens will be concerned having seen what just 1.4 degrees C of warming can do.  We should be increasingly worried about the impacts as we race towards 2 degrees C of warming and maybe even above this.  

Another sombre report was published last week by another UN agency as the Emissions Gap report, and released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It warned that we are heading for over double the warming currently experienced as we are on track for 2.9 degrees C of temperature rises.

A perfect storm

The climate change which is driven by the burning of fossil fuels , combined with the emergence of the natural El Nino climate pattern in the Eastern Pacific, are the joint forces that pushed the world into record territory this year. 

Scientists worry that 2024 could be even worse, as the El Nino climate impact is likely to peak this winter and drive temperatures even higher.  In addition, energy and climate analysts do not see a significant enough shift away from fossil fuels, a shift that would start reducing the emissions that climate scientists deem necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

COP28 runs from the 30th November – 12th December 2023.