UN weather agency says 2023 will be the hottest year on record and warns of further climate extremes

WMO published the findings on Thursday at the start of the annual UN climate conference.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates: The UN weather agency said on Thursday that 2023 will almost certainly be the hottest year on record, warning of worrying trends pointing to increased flooding, forest fires, glacier melting and heat waves in the future. The World Meteorological Organization also warned that average temperatures for the year are about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in pre-industrial times – just a tenth of a degree below the target limit for the end of the century, as laid down in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The WMO secretary general said the outbreak earlier this year of El Nino, the weather phenomenon marked by warming of the Pacific Ocean, will push average temperatures next year above the Paris limit of 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit ) could increase.

“It is almost certain that we will reach this 1.5 in the next four years, at least temporarily,” Petteri Taalas said in an interview. “And we will be there more or less permanently for the next ten years.”

WMO published the findings on Thursday at the start of the UN’s annual climate conference, which will be held this year in the oil-rich city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The UN agency said the benchmark for the main target of the Paris agreement will be whether the 1.5 degree increase is sustained over 30 years – and not just one year – but others say the world needs more on that needs clarity.

“Clarity on breaches of the Paris Agreement guardrails will be crucial,” said Richard Betts of the UK Met Office, the lead author of a new paper on the issue with the University of Exeter, published in the journal Nature .

“Without agreement on what will actually count as more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, we risk distraction and confusion at just the moment when action to prevent the worst impacts of climate change becomes even more urgent,” he added.

WMO’s Taalas said the world appears to be on track to well exceed that figure anyway.

“We are heading for a warming of 2.5 to 3 degrees and that would mean we will see many more negative consequences of climate change,” Taalas said, pointing to the loss of glaciers and sea level rise in the next thousands of years.

The nine years from 2015 to 2023 were the warmest on record, according to the WMO. The findings for this year run through October, but it says the past two months are unlikely to be enough to prevent 2023 from being a record warm year.

Still, there are “some signs of hope” – including a turn to renewable energy sources and more electric cars, which help reduce the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, trapping heat inside, Taalas said.

His message for participants in the UN climate conference known as COP28?

“We must dramatically reduce our consumption of coal, oil and natural gas to limit warming to the borders of Paris,” he said. “Luckily, things happen. But yet in the Western countries, in the rich countries, we still consume oil, a little less coal than in the past, and still natural gas.”

“Reducing fossil fuel consumption – that is the key to success.”