COP 28 Highlights Rising GHG and Climate Change Impacts

Scientific reports were published during the annual climate change summit, COP28, to inform negotiations. All reports are in consensus – they show that the world continues to head in the wrong direction in meeting its GHG emissions goals.

The new report from the Global Carbon Project – one of the partners of WMO’s United in Science reports – complements WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, which said that greenhouse gas concentrations in 2022 were at record levels and continued to rise in 2023 (Scientific reports, 2023).

Record greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 set the year to become the hottest year on record, according to the WMO report, the Provisional State of the Global Climate 2023. The Organization’s (WMO) other report, the Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Acceleration, states that each decade since the 1990s has been warmer than the previous one.

The annual Global Carbon Budget projects fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 36.8 billion tonnes in 2023, up 1.1% from 2022. Although fossil CO2 emissions are falling in some regions, including Europe and the USA, they are rising overall in other countries. Scientists say actions to reduce fossil fuel consumption are too slow to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that heat-trapping GHG in the atmosphere reached a new record in 2022, and “there is no end in sight to the rising trend”.

The key messages of the report are the following:

• Record levels of heat-trapping gases mean further temperature increases.
• The carbon budget is shrinking fast.
• Climate change impacts include extreme weather and sea level rise, and Global Greenhouse Gas Watch will support climate action.

The State of the Climate confirms that 2023 is the warmest year on record. Data until the end of October shows that the year was about 1.40 degrees Celsius (with a margin of uncertainty of ±0.12°C) above the pre-industrial 1850-1900 baseline. 

The difference between 2023 and 2016 and 2020 – previously ranked as the warmest years – is such that the final two months are unlikely to affect the ranking.

The Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Acceleration report documents how extreme events across the decade had devastating impacts, particularly on food security, displacement, and migration, hindering national development and progress toward the Sustainable  Development Goals (SDGs).

It also showed how improvements in forecasts, early warnings and coordinated disaster management and response are making a difference. The number of casualties from extreme events has declined, associated with improved early warning systems, even though economic losses have increased.