Climate in 2023: "The hottest year on record"

It has been the hottest year on record. Temperatures have reached levels where humans, and other mammals, are unable to survive. In one region in China the mercury hit 52C. Ice at both poles has shrunk to historic lows. Across the earth there were tumultuous rains and floods. And catastrophic wildfires. Soon the oceans may be warm enough to practically poach fish even before they’re caught.

Where we are is where it was predicted we would be when climate experts ran the data on carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. It looks like the worst-case scenario rather than the most hopeful. You could list the disasters of 2023 one after the other, and the likely economic and social impact of greatly increased numbers of climate refugees, but at this stage what’s the point?

The main thing to focus on is that events are moving very fast. Bill McGuire, author of Hothouse Earth, had to keep revising his final text as he wrote because “as soon as it’s published it’s out of date. That is how fast things are moving”. Looking at the plans touting mega-megacities in the Gulf and Africa’s west coast, and the prospect of a second term for Trump, one might be tempted to find a hill and build a fort.

Some extras were added in recent times. There’s a number of countries emitting vast clouds of methane that could be controlled, Turkmenistan being the worst.  The reduction in dirty air that came with Covid lockdowns, including the contraction of shipping and air travel, removed a lot of atmospheric dust and smoke aerosols that screen the sun’s rays and keep the temperature down. Did this increase ocean temperatures enough to contribute to extra rains?

And on January 15, 2022 the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai undersea volcanic eruption off Tonga blasted an astounding 146m tonnes of water into the atmosphere, raising the water vapour content of the stratosphere by 10–15%. This is the opposite of land-based eruptions which cool the atmosphere. Water vapour is a powerful greenhouse gas and the eruption has certainly added something to global warming.

But these are side panels to the main message: we’re not far from fucked. Are there any crumbs of comfort? Well, yes, though not many. For one, the shift to electric vehicles is growing. Yes, there are ethical and environmental issues to be addressed, for example the materials needed for batteries, their lifespan and expense and the difficulty of recycling.

Nonetheless, a tipping point is near. Likewise, we are transitioning to clean and renewable sources to power our offices, workshops and homes. And the effort to find global or continental agreements and partnerships continues with increasing vigour, notwithstanding the growing denialist and fascist tenor of politics in many countries.

There’s the High Seas Treaty signed at the UN in September. And there’s the Africa Climate Change Summit and the Latin America Climate Summit. Both extracted promises of significant funding to promote both global and regional sustainability. The latter had Brazil’s President Lula marking a fundamental change from the Bolsonaro era.

The Belem Declaration emerged from the South America summit. It calls for debt relief in return for climate action, for example the retention and restoration, where possible, of the Amazon’s rain forest. That seems fair to us. The Amazon Basin is, as we know, one of the earth’s lungs. We emit the carbon dioxide and the forests take it in and replace it with oxygen. It’s real carbon storage!

Emmanuel Macron has promised 1 billion will be spent in researching polar ice melt to find ways of alleviating and perhaps even reversing it.  And there are countless scientific, engineering and agricultural innovations emerging.

But it’s an uphill battle. Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University says that if we can keep global temperature rise below 1.5C we can retain what we have. But if we go beyond 3C we probably can’t. “In between is where we’re rolling the dice,” he told The Guardian in September.

Today’s policies and actions will only hold the rise to 2.75C. If we actually implemented what has been pledged and planned it would be 2C. So, how deep is our commitment? “1.5C is already really bad,” he said “but 3C is potentially civilisation-ending bad”.

If that doesn’t motivate us, nothing will.

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