The planet has marked an ominous milestone: Last year was the hottest on record, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Tuesday.
The news comes as a Bernstein survey of 49 global institutional investors focused on environmental, social and governance, or ESG, factors found that artificial intelligence and ESG jumped to the top of the list of issues that will be more top of mind for investors in 2024, surpassing biodiversity and climate change, which tied for first place last year.
“While we continue to expect climate issues to remain top of mind for investors, investors’ focus areas have diversified meaningfully as ESG strategies have become more sophisticated and as ESG issues become increasingly intertwined with global macro and geopolitical trends,” said Zhihan Ma, global head of ESG research at Bernstein and author of the report.
Searing global temperatures from June onward led 2023 to overtake 2016—the previous warmest year—by a large margin, Copernicus said.
In 2023, the global average temperature was 14.98 degrees Celsius, or 58.96 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 0.17 degrees Celsius higher than the previous highest annual value in 2016. The temperature data records go back to 1850.
“The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilization developed,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.
“This has profound consequences for the Paris Agreement and all human endeavors. If we want to successfully manage our climate risk portfolio, we need to urgently decarbonize our economy whilst using climate data and knowledge to prepare for the future.”
The Paris Agreement on climate change aims to limit global warming relative to a preindustrial baseline. Its overarching goal is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. But in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.
Last November, the Earth briefly crossed a threshold when the average air temperature near the surface of the Earth exceeded 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times, when people started burning fossil fuels as part of the Industrial Revolution.
Copernicus said it is likely that the 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above the preindustrial levels. By limiting the planet’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, world leaders hope to stave off severe climate disruptions that could worsen drought, hunger, and conflict around the world.
Copernicus said each month from June to December last year was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year.
Other “remarkable highlights” from 2023 include record low sea ice levels around Antarctica. Also, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane continued to increase and reached record levels last year, said Copernicus. The world also experienced a large number of extreme events, including heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires.
“2023 was an exceptional year with climate records tumbling like dominoes,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Estimated global wildfire carbon emissions in 2023 increased by 30% compared with 2022, driven largely by persistent wildfires in Canada, according to Copernicus.
Last year, a staggering number of acres burned in Canada. Over the course of the fire season, an estimated 45.7 million acres—an area roughly the size of North Dakota—went up in flames. On average, just 2.5 million hectares burn in Canada each year.
Write to Lauren Foster at [email protected]
Read the full article here