On Jan. 9, just as the masses bid their final goodbyes to 2023, scientists confirmed that 2023 didn’t just break heat records— it completely shattered them.
Each day recorded in 2023 was 1C hotter than its corresponding day in the pre-industrial period when humans hadn’t yet begun discharging large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Copernicus, an operational program that reports climate change research carried out within the World Climate Research Programme, confirmed that the United States, including Portland, Miami, New Orleans, and Houston, as well as areas ranging from China to Europe, endured new record temperatures.
The unprecedented heat was exacerbated by El Niño, a weather phenomenon that causes ocean surface warming in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean. The warming climate led to increased natural disasters, such as flooding, storms, wildfires, droughts, and ill health due to fatal heat spikes.
Political and industrial impacts
Global warming has hit dangerously close to The Paris Agreement’s set limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius, causing experts to agree that drastic measures need to be enacted to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and keep them within manageable levels, according to Forbes.
The Paris Agreement, also known as the Paris Climate Accords, is an international agreement on climate change. It was adopted on Dec. 12, 2015, by 196 parties at the UN Climate Change Conference.
Transitioning towards cleaner sources of energy and weeding out fossil fuels are the primary ways carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced, according to Copernicus.
Achieving concord between countries working to limit climate change has proven difficult, however, as there are differences in fossil fuel reliance, lack of access to green technology, and different impacts of climate change.
