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FOUR KEY CLIMATE change indicators all set new record highs in 2021, the United Nations said today, warning that the global energy system was driving humanity towards catastrophe.
Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification all set new records last year, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its “State of the Global Climate in 2021″ report.
The annual overview is “a dismal litany of humanity’s failure to tackle climate disruption”, UN chief Antonio Guterres said.
“The global energy system is broken and bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe.
“We must end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition before we incinerate our only home.”
The WMO said human activity was causing planetary-scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for ecosystems.
Record heat
The report confirmed that the past seven years were the top seven hottest years on record.
Back-to-back La Nina events at the start and end of 2021 had a cooling effect on global temperatures last year.
Even so, it was still one of the warmest years ever recorded, with the average global temperature in 2021 about 1.11 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.
The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw countries agree to cap global warming at “well below” 2C above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5C if possible.
“Our climate is changing before our eyes,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.
“The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come. Sea level rise, ocean heat and acidification will continue for hundreds of years unless means to remove carbon from the atmosphere are invented.”
‘Consistent picture of warming world’
Four key indicators of climate change “build a consistent picture of a warming world that touches all parts of the Earth system”, the report said.
Greenhouse gas concentrations reached a new global high in 2020, when the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached 413.2 parts per million (ppm) globally, or 149% of the pre-industrial level.
Data indicate that they continued to increase in 2021 and early 2022, with monthly average CO2 at Mauna Loa in Hawaii reaching 416.45 ppm in April 2020, 419.05 ppm in April 2021, and 420.23 ppm in April 2022, the report said.
Global mean sea level reached a new record high in 2021, rising an average of 4.5 millimetres per year throughout 2013 to 2021, the report said.
GMSL rose by 2.1 mm per year between 1993 and 2002, with the increase between the two time periods “mostly due to the accelerated loss of ice mass from the ice sheets”, it said.
Signs in the seas
Ocean heat hit a record high last year, exceeding the 2020 value, the report said.
And it is expected that the upper 2,000 metres of the ocean will continue to warm in the future — “a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial timescales”, said the WMO, adding that the warmth was penetrating to ever deeper levels.
The ocean absorbs around 23% of the annual emissions of human-caused CO2 into the atmosphere. While this slows the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, CO2 reacts with seawater and leads to ocean acidification.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with “very high confidence” that open ocean surface acidity is at the highest “for at least 26,000 years”.
Meanwhile the report said the Antarctic ozone hole reached an “unusually deep and large” maximum area of 24.8 million square kilometres in 2021, driven by a strong and stable polar vortex.
Guterres proposed five actions to jump-start the transition to renewable energy “before it’s too late”.
Among them, he suggested ending fossil fuel subsidies, tripling investments in renewable energy and making renewable energy technologies, such as battery storage, freely-available global public goods.
“If we act together, the renewable energy transformation can be the peace project of the 21st century,” Guterres said.
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I see exactly why Ireland is being bombarded with the climate agenda.
We are getting bombarded simply to feel some guilt and an illusion that we are contributing and changing things – which we definitely are not.
but in reality it is a super easy way for the gov to rip you off on tax in disguise of a contribution and helping earth. they simply want to take your last trousers.
People higher up and government know exactly that even if we go 0 carbon next day it wont contribute an absolute s..t to the world.
This climate agenda should be deployed in china , russia , india , united states , germany , qatar and the rest of the worlds highest pollutive countries.
But you definitely know what will those countries tell you… yep , its going to be loud and clear – F…. off.
@John Johnes: great point, at least you can tell your kids and grandkids you did your best John!
@Alan Biddulph: thanks Alan. I sure will.
@John Johnes: Please John….. Don’t lie to your kids!!!!
@John Johnes: what’s wrong with a climate agenda? What’s the alternative? Business as usual is clearly not an option. You might think it’s all about tax, but really it’s about changing from a destructive society to a sustainable one.
I recommend listening to the Guardian Carbon Bomb article:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/may/18/the-carbon-bombs-set-to-blow-up-the-worlds-climate-pledges
“dozen biggest oil companies were on track to spend $103m a day for the rest of the decade, exploiting new fields of oil and gas that could not be burned if global heating was to be limited to well under 2C.”
@Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown: thanks for this, that is incredibly encouraging for fuel and heating costs as well as related electricity price inflation for the future. Unfortunately we are not in a position to do without fossil fuels at the moment and until alternatives are developed then we need a cost effective alternative.
Previous 172 years= 1.11°C rise in global temperatures.(0.06°C per decade)
Previous 122 years= 1.2cm rise in sea levels. (0.1mm per decade). Yes, climate change is happening. Exactly as it has throughout recorded history. The constant barrage of hyperbole surrounding this issue is damaging our chance of reversing the upward trend which has become more pronounced over the last few years.
@Coco Walsh: How?
Seems nothing we’ve done in last 20 years is having any effect, in fact things getting worse quicker????…get the feeling we’re not capable of controlling the climate and there must be some flaw in the action plan the scientists and politicians are following
@Spartacus Ireland: Yes. It has not been followed quickly enough.
@Nicholas McMurry: Hmm, I wonder, getting the feeling it’ll never ever be quick enough…surely at this stage even the rate of the deterioration should be slowing, but no!, the opposite, much worse than thought and much quicker…surely it doesn’t take a scientist to figure out if you keep doing something to fix something and it continues to get much much worse at a much faster rate then there’s some serious rethinking needed on the problem or on the solution
@Spartacus Ireland: in fairness we have done f all. The amount of investment in renewables has been dwarfed by the investment in and pollution caused by fossil fuels. We’ve known about this from 50 years and any attempt to tackle it has been feeble.
The UN yapping about climate again meanwhile they are unable to do diddly squat about the war in Ukraine cause nobody listens to them anymore let it be wars or climate change
They are more of an annoyance than a solution
Sure I’d they look at history all the weapons they let be tested from nukes to chemical all over the world
Italy has banned fracking & thanks to the deal done with CETA the Italian people have to pay these companies something like 280 million. So your damned if you do & damned if you don’t!.
Blah blah blah……
have your say