Comment on WMO Provisional State of Global Climate 2023 report

“This year has seen a grim toll of temperature and climate records being broken again and again. It’s no surprise therefore that the WMO is issuing yet another warning as the world’s nations gather for the latest climate summit.

“If leaders speaking in the next couple of days needed reminding, the WMO warned recently that 2022 saw record emissions of greenhouse gases. Concentrations of carbon dioxide alone in 2022 were 50% above the pre-industrial levels for the first time and they’ve carried on going up in 2023. [2] Combined with an ongoing El Niño, it’s certain that we’ll see ever-worsening climate impacts in the coming months and years.

“With current agreements taking the world to around 2.7°C, there couldn’t be a starker measure of what’s at stake at COP28. While the air at COP is electric with climate energy, it is overshadowed by the ominous knocking of inevitable climate crises at our doorstep.”

Gareth Redmond-King, Head of International Programme at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said: “As world leaders descend on Dubai to begin work at COP28 we can barely hear ourselves think over the volume of warning alarms signalling the scale of the job ahead.

“The WMO’s klaxon echoes warnings from the IPCC’s climate scientists earlier this year that impacts are worse than expected, and getting worse in this, the new hottest year on record. Climate impacts know no borders and their impacts ripple around the world. In the UK, we import half our food - half those supply chains are in climate impact hotspots.

“Which means not only that COP28 will be expected to close the gap on action - doubling renewables, phasing out fossil fuels and restoring nature - but also to address the finance gap for richer nations to support poorer ones to adapt and build resilience to these worsening threats.”