As we celebrate Earth Day, it seems that the Earth itself has little to celebrate. From the depth of the ocean to the peaks of mountains, climate change is continuing its assault on our planet, according to a report by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
The State of the Global Climate 2022 report released on Friday shows that record levels of heat-trapping by greenhouse gases is causing large-scale changes to the land, ocean and the atmosphere.
In terms of temperature, the years between 2015 and 2022 were the eight warmest on record. This is despite the cool impact of the La Nina over the past three years. Melting of glaciers and sea level rise reach records in 2022 and it will continue for thousands of years. Ice levels in the Antarctic Sea fell to its lowest on record and the melting of some glaciers was quite literally off the charts.
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The massive impacts of climate change also made themselves evident with many extreme weather effects across the world, including continuous droughts in East Africa, widespread floods in Pakistan, and record-breaking heatwaves in China and Europe.
Not only did such hazardous climate and weather-related events worsen conditions for the more than 95 million that were already displaced when 2022 began, but it also added to that number.
“We have the tools, the knowledge, and the solutions. But we must pick up the pace. We need accelerated climate action with deeper, faster emissions cuts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We also need 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 Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, in a press statement.
