The consequences of the climate crisis are becoming increasingly catastrophic – attests a new report by the World Meteorological Organization. Their boss still sees reason for hope.
Global warming is progressing at a rapid pace – and is leading to more and more negative records. This is the conclusion of the 2022 climate status report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which was presented in Geneva on Friday. Among other things, the temperatures, the sea level and the melting of the glaciers are affected. And the climate experts at the UN organization warn: It will only get worse.
The catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis affected every continent in the past year, the WMO noted. Secretary-General Petteri Taalas cited the ongoing drought in East Africa, the floods in Pakistan and the heat waves in China and Europe as examples. They “affected tens of millions of people, led to food insecurity and mass migration, and caused billions of dollars in losses and damage,” he said.
In Spain, Germany, Britain, France and Portugal, last summer’s heatwaves killed 15,000 more people than usual during the period, the report said. The floods in Pakistan killed more than 1,700 people. In Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced by drought and starvation over the past year. The climate crisis has thus led to further displacement and worsened the conditions for many of the 95 million people who were already fleeing at the beginning of the year.
Threatening weather phenomenon makes heat records more likely
Due to a special weather phenomenon, experts are warning of a record global average temperature in the coming year – or even this year. The impending El Niño does not bode well, Taalas said. Because the phenomenon has a warming effect, the global average temperature could peak as early as next year, Taalas said.
The El Niño event that is likely to develop over the course of this year “first of all increases the probability that 2023 and 2024 will match or exceed the previous record value of 2016 in terms of global mean temperature,” said Andreas Fink from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Helge Goessling from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven takes a similar line: It could well be “that new global records will be set in 2023 or 2024”.
Karsten Haustein from the Institute for Meteorology at the University of Leipzig even considers it conceivable that the year 2024 “will also exceed the 1.5-degree mark globally for the first time on an annual basis”.
Will the 1.5 degree limit fall?
Because of the historical greenhouse gas emissions, it is already clear that the negative trends will initially continue into the 2060s, regardless of all efforts today, said Taalas. However, if ambitious climate protection measures are implemented now, there is a chance that warming will fall below the 1.5 degree target again after it has been temporarily exceeded.
