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Summary
- Global temperatures are setting new records month after month, increasing the likelihood of exceeding the 1.5-degree Celsius warming target set in the Paris 2015 climate talks.
- Scientists have observed multiple climate records being broken, with 2023 experiencing a faster warming rate than the previous year.
- Climate change has led to wild weather swings, unpredictable storms, and longer-lasting heatwaves, causing suffering and loss of life.
- Phasing out fossil fuel use and accelerating the adoption of renewable energy sources are crucial steps to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Key passage:
WHAT DO THE SHATTERED RECORDS MEAN FOR HUMANS?
More suffering. Human-induced climate change has brought wild weather swings, increasingly unpredictable storms and heat waves that stay over a particular area for longer periods of time.
An Asian heat wave this spring forced schools to close in the Philippines, killed people in Thailand and set records there and in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives and Myanmar. Weeks of heat waves across parts of India last month also closed schools and killed people.
Life won’t end if temperatures exceed the 1.5-degree limit, but things will get worse, scientists say. Previous U.N. studies show massive changes to Earth’s ecosystem are more likely to begin between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius of warming, including eventual loss of the planet’s coral reefs, Arctic sea ice, some species of plants and animals—along with even worse extreme weather events that kill people and damage infrastructure.
