Past 8 years on track to be warmest on record: Report

SHARM El-SHEIKH, Egypt

The past eight years are on track to be the warmest on record fueled by the growing greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat, the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) provisional State of Global Climate in 2022 report said.

The report is released on the first day of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) taking place in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh from Nov. 6 to 18.

"The tell-tale signs and impacts of climate change are becoming more dramatic," said in the report.

The mean rise in global temperature this year is currently estimated to be about 1.15 degree Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

The 10-year average for the period 2013-2022 is calculated to be 1.14C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline, according to the report.

The global temperature rise has been driven with the increasing greenhouse gas emissions concentrations.

The main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, reached record levels in 2021 and the data from key monitoring stations shows atmospheric levels of the three gases continue to rise in 2022.

"The greater the warming, the worse the impacts. We have such high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now that the lower 1.5C of the Paris Agreement is barely within reach," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas on the report.

The rise in global temperature caused record level of ocean heat in 2021 with the warming rate particularly high in the past 20 years, according to the report.

The report finds sea level rise has doubled since 1993 while it has risen by nearly 10 milimeters since January 2020 to a new record high this year.

Taalas said that although the sea level was is measured in milimeters per year, it adds up to half to one meter per century.

"That is a long-term and major threat to many millions of coastal dwellers and low-lying states," he said.

- All countries suffer from impacts of climate change

The Greenland ice sheet lost mass for the 26th consecutive year as a result of the ever-rising global temperature.

"It is already too late for many glaciers and the melting will continue for hundreds if not thousands of years, with major implications for water security," he pointed out.

"All too often, those least responsible for climate change suffer most – as we have seen with the terrible flooding in Pakistan and deadly, long-running drought in the Horn of Africa," Taalas said, adding that even the well prepared countries like Europe suffered from heatwaves and drought this year.

"Increasingly extreme weather makes it more important than ever to ensure that everyone on Earth has access to life-saving early warnings," Taalas said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will unveil an Action Plan at COP27 to achieve Early Warnings for All in the next five years.

"As COP27 gets underway, our planet is sending a distress signal. We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action, ambitious, credible climate action. COP27 must be the place and now must be the time," Guterres said on the release of the report.