Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 22nd April. World Meteorological Organization said on Friday that the relentless advance of climate change brought more drought, flooding and heat waves to communities around the world last year, compounding threats to people’s lives and livelihoods.
WMO latest State of the Global Climate report showed that the past 8 years were the eight warmest on record, and that sea level rise and ocean warming hit new highs. Record levels of greenhouse gases caused “planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere”.
The agency issued this year’s report Mother Earth Day, echoed Secretary-General António Guterres’ call for “deeper, faster emissions cuts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius”, as well as “massively scaled-up investments in adaptation and resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable countries and communities who have done the least to cause the crisis”.
WMO head Prof. Petteri Taalas, said that amid rising greenhouse gas emissions and a changing climate, “populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events”.
He stressed that last year, “continuous drought in East Africa, record breaking rainfall in Pakistan and record-breaking heatwaves in China and Europe affected tens of millions, drove food insecurity, boosted mass migration, and cost billions of dollars in loss and damage.”
WMO highlighted the importance of investing in climate monitoring and early warning systems to help mitigate the humanitarian impacts of extreme weather.
The report pointed out that today improved technology makes the transition to renewable energy “cheaper and more accessible than ever”.
The State of the Global Climate report complements the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment report released a month ago, which includes data up to 2020.
WMO’s new figures showed that global temperatures have continued to rise, making the years 2015 to 2022 the eight warmest ever since regular tracking started in 1850. WMO notes that this was despite three consecutive years of a cooling La Niña climate pattern.
The agency focused on three main greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record highs in 2021, which is the latest year for which consolidated data is available, and that there are indications of a continued increase in 2022.
According to the report, “melting of glaciers and sea level rise – which again reached record levels in 2022 – will continue to up to thousands of years”.
WMO highlights that “Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record and the melting of some European glaciers was, literally, off the charts”.
It noted that sea level rise threatens the existence of coastal communities and sometimes entire countries, has been fuelled not only by melting glaciers and ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica, but also by the expansion of the volume of oceans due to heat.
WMO noted that ocean warming has been “particularly high in the past two decades”.
Secretary General Mr. Guterres warned that “biodiversity is collapsing as one million species teeter on the brink of extinction”, and called on the world to end its “relentless and senseless wars on nature.”
He insisted that “we have the tools, the knowledge, and the solutions” to address climate change.
Mr. Guterres convened an Advisory Panel of top UN agency officials, private sector and civil society leaders, to help fast track a global initiative aiming to protect all countries through life-saving early warning systems by 2027.
It coordinated in 30 countries most vulnerable to extreme weather, including Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries.
WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said that some one hundred countries currently do not have adequate weather services in place, and that the UN Early Warnings for All Initiative “aims to fill the existing capacity gap to ensure that every person on earth is covered by early warning services”.
Mr. Taalas explained that “achieving this ambitious task requires improvement of observation networks, investments in early warning, hydrological and climate service capacities.”
He stressed the effectiveness of collaboration among UN agencies in addressing humanitarian impacts of climate events, especially in reducing mortality and economic losses..
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