These Are the Climate Numbers to Watch in 2023
With the new year come new updates to the key climate change indicators. It’s likely to be a mixed bag.
Emissions rise from a smoke stack, behind a substation at the Conesville Power Plant in Conesville, Ohio, U.S.
Photographer: Dane Rhys/BloombergThe year 2022 saw the US enact an unprecedented climate bill and countries take bold steps at two United Nations conferences to aid disaster-stricken developing nations and preserve what’s left of the natural world. Investment in renewables grew and so did the popularity of electric cars and heat pumps. When it comes to the Earth’s vital statistics, however, the outlook remains less promising.
Here’s where we stand at the start of 2023.
A Sizzling Start
In the next few weeks, major climate science research groups are expected to issue their conclusions about 2022’s global average temperature — and it’s likely to be hot. A first-draft estimate issued by the World Meteorological Organization in November predicted the year would rank as the fifth or sixth hottest on record, 1.15C above the 1850-1900 average. That would make the last eight years the hottest since global measurements began, according to the WMO’s count.
If the first few days of 2023 are anything to go by, the warming trend looks set to continue. The year began with one of the most severe winter warm spells in European records, according to meteorologists. After the continent smashed summer heat records for the second consecutive year in 2022, new seasonal highs were registered in several European countries on New Year’s Day.
Scientists say temperatures may breach the Paris Agreement’s lower limit of 1.5C within a decade.