UN report: Last 8 years were the hottest on record
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After the COP26 and a plethora of resolutions from developed nations, Earth's temperature only continues to increase.
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Greenhouses in plumes. (Getty Images)
According to a 2022 report for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) provisional State of Global Climate, the past 8 years are on their way to being declared as the warmest on record, fueled by the growing greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat.
The report was released on the first day of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), which is currently taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The event will be taking place from November 6 to 18.
"The tell-tale signs and impacts of climate change are becoming more dramatic," the report said.
The global temperature average is predicted to be 1.15 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. According to the report, the 10-year average for 2013-2022 is calculated to be 1.14C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline.
With the increasing potency and abundance of greenhouse gas emissions - carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide - global temperatures have been on the rise. In 2021, the amount of gas occupying the atmosphere reached record levels, and they're only continuing to rise in 2022.
"The greater the warming, the worse the impacts. We have such high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now that the lower 1.5C of the Paris Agreement is barely within reach," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas on the report.
Greenland has lost ice sheet mass for the 26th year
The report also found that the rise in global temperatures in 2021 also raised ocean temperatures - they have been particularly high in the past 20 years.
"That is a long-term and major threat to many millions of coastal dwellers and low-lying states," he said.
Greenland has lost ice sheet mass for the 26th year in a row due to climate change: "It is already too late for many glaciers and the melting will continue for hundreds if not thousands of years, with major implications for water security," he pointed out.
"All too often, those least responsible for climate change suffer most – as we have seen with the terrible flooding in Pakistan and deadly, long-running drought in the Horn of Africa," Taalas said, explaining that even "well-prepared" countries like those in Europe suffered from heatwaves and drought in 2022.
"Increasingly extreme weather makes it more important than ever to ensure that everyone on Earth has access to life-saving early warnings," Taalas said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will unveil an Action Plan at COP27 to achieve Early Warnings for All in the next five years.
"As COP27 gets underway, our planet is sending a distress signal. We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action, ambitious, credible climate action. COP27 must be the place and now must be the time," Guterres said on the release of the report.
On Saturday, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, warned in an interview for The Guardian, that unless wealthy nations and developing nations make a "historic pact" on climate change, "we will be doomed."
