There is currently a huge gap between climate goals and reality, emphasizes the recent climate report of the UN World Meteorological Organization.
We are going in the wrong direction, warns the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in its latest climate report.
United in Science 2022 report (you will switch to another service) brings together the latest research information on the climate change situation.
The Finnish expert considers the key message of the report to be that, according to him, the current actions are not sufficient to curb climate change and achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
– A more ambitious global climate policy is still needed in order to curb warming more, researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute Mika Rantanen summarize the report.
The goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep the global average temperature increase well below two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times and to strive for measures to limit warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
According to the WMO report, greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise.
In 2020 and 2021, there was a slight dip in carbon dioxide emissions due to the pandemic. At the beginning of 2022, however, carbon dioxide emissions were globally higher than before the corona pandemic, at the beginning of 2019.
New heat records in the coming years
Mika Rantanen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, also points out from the WMO report what kind of picture it paints of the global temperature in the next few years.
The past seven years have been record warm.
– According to the report, there is about a 93 percent probability that one of the next few years 2022–2026 will be record warm, i.e. break the current record from 2016, says Mika Rantanen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
In addition, the report gives an almost 50 percent probability that in the next five years the average annual temperature will be, at least in one year, temporarily 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than in pre-industrial times.
The amount of heat in the seas has also been record high in recent years.
The WMO report also draws attention to extreme weather phenomena.
– Floods, droughts, heat waves, storms and wildfires are getting worse and worse. Records are being broken at an alarming rate, says the UN Secretary General António Guterres in the report’s announcement.
Global warming will increasingly affect the lives of billions of people – most of all those who are already in a vulnerable position.
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