Over 50 of the world’s leading scientists have warned that global warming has accelerated at an “unprecedented” pace as the window to limit rising temperatures within internationally set targets is closing.
The study published in the journal Earth System Science Data showed that temperatures climbed 0.26 degrees Celsius from 2014 to 2023. In the same period, average global surface temperatures also reached 1.19C above the preindustrial benchmark for measuring a warming world.
“Human-induced warming has been increasing at a rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record,” said the study, which is a part of a series of periodic climate assessments designed to fill the gap between UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that have been released on average every six years since 1988.
The report found that by the end of 2023, human activities had pushed temperatures 1.31C above the preindustrial level. Taking other naturally occurring drivers, including the El Nino weather phenomenon, the planet warmed a total of 1.43C.
The primary driver of global warming, by far, was “greenhouse gas emissions being at an all-time high,” the study said.
Average annual emissions for the 2013-2022 period was 53 billion tons of carbon dioxide and the equivalent in other gases – primarily coming from the use of fossil fuels. However, in 2022, those emissions amounted to 55 billion tons.
It means that the world’s carbon budget – the estimated amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted before driving the planet over the 1.5C threshold – is “shrinking fast,” the study warned.
Without a significant change in emissions, the threshold would be breached and become a “long term average” within the next decade, the scientists warned.
The signs are all there and the alarms have been raised multiple times, and yet, humanity cannot seem to take the threat seriously enough to collectively do what is needed to slow down the warming of the planet, despite what is generally agreed to result in devastating consequences for us all. Do we really want to wait to see what will happen when we run out of time and carbon budget?*
