The Paris Agreement
Record number fleeing climate disasters
TT
Updated 19.58 | Published 05.00
Global temperature increase compared to pre-industrial levels (1850–1900), degrees Celsius. ERA5 is the Copernicus weather database.
1 / 3Photo: Anders Humlebo/TT
The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly clear, the World Meteorological Organization WMO states in its annual major report.
Hundreds of thousands were forced to flee climate disasters last year.
We cannot turn back from this development, warn scientists.
2024 was the warmest year ever measured and 1.55 degrees warmer than the second half of the 19th century, according to the WMO's flagship report "State of the climate".
The causes of the high temperature are human emissions of greenhouse gases, which last year coincided with the El Niño phenomenon.
– Something that surprised me, as someone who follows global temperatures month by month, is the string of record-breaking warm months that occurred from 2023 onwards. It has been exceptional, says John Kennedy, lead author of the report.
A warmer climate means more extreme weather such as droughts and worse hurricanes, and according to the report, a record number of people – hundreds of thousands – were forced to flee last year as a result of disasters exacerbated by climate change. However, the WMO states that a third of the world's population lacks access to early warning systems. This could, for example, be warnings of torrential rain, which can lead to flash floods.
– It is something that we globally really need to work much harder to build capacity for, to save lives and save money and resources, says Erik Kjellström, professor of climatology at SMHI.
The ocean absorbs heat
The carbon dioxide that is released in the coming years will add to the warming.
– Once we have released that carbon dioxide, we will not get rid of it for a very, very long time. It will take centuries or even longer before the carbon dioxide eventually disappears, says Kjellström.
Most of the heat caused by the greenhouse effect is absorbed by the oceans, which causes them to warm up to great depths. It is a development that cannot be reversed, but we will have to suffer the consequences for hundreds if not thousands of years, warn the scientists.
Increased ocean temperatures lead to problems such as coral bleaching and, since warm water expands, it also leads to higher sea levels.
The Paris goal is alive
2024 will be the first year that global warming is higher than 1.5 degrees. But the WMO emphasizes that this does not mean that the Paris Agreement's goal of keeping global warming below that limit has been achieved, since that goal is about warming over a longer period of time.
Depending on how you calculate it, the long-term warming is in the range of 1.34–1.41 degrees, according to the report. The average from 2015 to 2024 is 1.25 degrees.
FACTS
There are several gases in the atmosphere that lead to the greenhouse effect.
Carbon dioxide is the most important of those that humans contribute to. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to rise. In 2023, which is the most recent year for which global figures are available, the level reached 420 parts per million (ppm). That is 2.3 ppm more than in 2022 and 151 percent of pre-industrial levels.
Carbon dioxide levels have not been this high in at least two million years.
Levels of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide also reached record levels in 2023. Methane reached 1,934 parts per billion and nitrous oxide 337 parts per billion, 265 and 125 percent of pre-industrial levels, respectively. Concentrations of these gases have not been this high in 800,000 years.
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