Wow! Have you heard? The average global temperature for June was somewhere on the order of 62 degrees Fahrenheit – making this the hottest June on record. That yet another temperature record has been broken, doesn’t just lend credence to the notion our planet is warming and there is widespread fallout connected with the planetary temperature rise, but it should be self-evident that the change we’re seeing with respect to such is abnormal if not completely unique, and is unlike anything humans have been impacted by and witnessed previously.
The fallout can be seen in the form of: wildfires, like those affecting Canada at present; torrential rains causing catastrophic area flooding, storms that were once considered as once-in-a-millennium events and are now appearing with more regularity and intensity; the less-in-the-public-eye-and-consciousness matters like the inability for certain locales that once had favorable climatic conditions needed for growing, say, the principal ingredient in beer brewing – hops in this case – in the outdoors but now no longer do, well, these are just a handful of the circumstances that have arisen in this time of climate uncertainty.
Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization in its May 17, 2023 “Global temperatures set to reach new records in next five years” press release, submitted: “Global temperatures are likely to surge to record levels in the next five years, fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño event, according to a new update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
“There is a 66% likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year. There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record.”
“‘This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency,’ said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.”
To me, what all of this points to is the notion that the increase in average global temperature rise will be ongoing and that the increase, at least in part, is human induced.
So, it is no surprise then that there would be this call or push to want to, as it were, reverse course and, as such, it would follow that resolutions in response to would be recommended and/or prescribed.
“The new report was released ahead of the World Meteorological Congress (22 May to 2 June) which will discuss how to strengthen weather and climate services to support climate change adaptation. Priorities for discussion at Congress include the ongoing Early Warnings for All initiative to protect people from increasingly extreme weather and a new Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Infrastructure to inform climate mitigation,” the WMO reported.
This was preceded by the WMO with its earlier statement (in the press release in question) that, “The Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5°C, to avoid or reduce adverse impacts and related losses and damages.”
And added: “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5°C than at present, but lower than at 2°C.”
Last updated on Aug. 13, 2023 at 5:09 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
⁃ Alan Kandel
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