No substitute for action against climate crisis
Annual global temperature is likely to be at least 1°C warmer than pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years, puting globally agreed climate change targets in jeopardy, new data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has revealed, and this is a mater of huge concern.
The prediction is among the findings in the UN agency’s latest Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, released on Thursday in Geneva, which also shows that temperature could exceed 1.5°C in at least one year between now and 2024.
The Earth’s average temperature has already risen beyond 1°C above the preindustrial period, which spans 1850-1900.
This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – the enormous challenge ahead in meeting the Paris Agreement on Climate Change target of keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as WMO Secretary-general Peteri Taalas points out.
Average temperature in 2019 was only a few hundredths of a degree below the 2016 level.
The five warmest years in record have all occurred in the last five years and the period of 2010-2019 was the hotest decade since records began.
Globally temperatures in 2019 were 0.6 Celsius warmer than the 1981-2010 average. Earth’s temperature over the last five years was 1.1C-1.2˚C hoter than pre-industrial times.
Last year was Europe’s hotest ever.
2018’s top weather disasters showed that even the world’s most advanced economies could find themselves at the mercy of meteorological events amplified by global warming.
Japan, Philippines and Germany top a list of countries worst hit by extreme weather last year.
Compounding the worries, temperatures in Arctic Siberia soared to a record average for June, more than 5 degrees Celsius (9°F) above normal, in a heat wave that is stoking some of the worst wildfires the region has ever known, as per European Union data.
Exceptional warmth was recorded over Arctic Siberia, the EU’S earth observation programme Copernicus has stated, part of a trend scientists are calling a “warning cry”.
Average temperatures in the region were more than a degree higher than in June in the last two years, which previously held the records as the two warmest Junes ever.
The World Meteorological Organization is also seeking to confirm whether a record Russian reading of more than 100°F (38°C) in Siberia, is also the highest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle.
In total, last year, wildfires in the Arctic Circle produced more than 170 megatonnes of emissions, exceeding the 2018 annual emissions of many countries.
The UAE, on its part, deserves praise for remaining commited to tackling the consequences of climate change and promoting efforts to adapt at the national level, by moving to a low-carbon green economy in line with the 2015-2030 UAE Green Agenda, the National Climate Change Plan 2017-2050 and the UAE Energy Strategy 2050.
The slowdown in industrial and economic activity due to the pandemic is not a substitute for sustained and coordinated climate action.
Whilst COVID-19 has caused a severe international health and economic crisis, failure to tackle climate change may threaten human well-being, ecosystems and economies for centuries, governments should use the opportunity to embrace climate action as part of recovery programmes and ensure that we grow back beter, as Taalas correctly points out.