According to U.S. scientists, last year was the fifth-warmest in recorded history.

By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS, (Reuters) – Last year was the joint-fifth-warmest year in recorded history. The last nine years have been the warmest since preindustrial times. This is because climate change continues to increase temperatures and fuel extreme weather.

According to NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2015 was the fifth-warmest year since 1880 when record-keeping began.

Despite the fact that the Pacific Ocean’s La Nina weather system, which tends to lower global temperatures slightly, was present, this result was not surprising.

The average global temperature of the world is now between 1.1C and 1.2C, which is a significant increase from pre-industrial times.

According to NOAA-NASA, temperatures are increasing faster than 0.2C every decade. This puts the world on the path to surpass the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C. To avoid the most disastrous consequences.

“At the current rate we’re moving, it won’t take us more than two decades before we get there.” The only way we can stop putting greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere is to do so,” Gavin Schmidt, director at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said.

Schmidt indicated that he anticipated 2023 to be slightly hotter than 2022 because of a weaker La Nina cooling effect.

Sonia Seneviratne from ETH Zurich, a climate scientist, said that the global average temperature would rise even more in 10 years if countries stop burning fossil fuels.

WEATHER EXTREMES

Climate change has fueled extreme weather across the globe in 2022. Europe experienced its hottest summer in history, while floods in Pakistan killed 1,700 people. In addition, drought in Uganda decimated crops and destroyed infrastructure.

Despite major emitters around the world pledging to cut their net emissions, global CO2 continues to rise.

Schmidt stated that the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 reached levels last year not seen on Earth in 3 million years.

At the COP28 climate meeting, countries will be formally assessed on their progress towards the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement – as well as the faster emissions reductions required to achieve it.

The United Arab Emirates hosted COP28 and on Thursday, the head its state-owned oil company was elected president. This raised questions among scientists and campaigners about how the fossil fuel industry is influencing the conference.

These NOAA-NASA results are consistent with separate analysis by European Union scientists who this week ranked 2022 fifth in their records for the warmest year.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Editing by Alex Richardson).