Earth is at its hottest in thousands of years

If we don’t want to see the 1.5 degrees C goal disappearing in our rearview mirror, the world must work much harder and urgently at bringing emissions down.

In the last decade, humankind has been releasing about 54 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year into Earth’s atmosphere.

Average global temperatures are rising at an ever faster rate despite pledges by world leaders to tackle climate change, a new study has revealed.

The new study, released last week during a preparatory meeting for the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference that will take place later this year in the United Arab Emirates, found that the pace of global warming has accelerated in recent years despite political commitments to curb the progress of the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times.

Global temperatures increased on average by 1.07 degrees C (1.93 degrees F) in the decade from 2010 to 2019, but the average rise in the decade from 2013 to 2022 was 1.14 degrees C (2.05 degrees F). That means that the pace of human-induced climate change is accelerating at a rate of over 0.2 degrees C per decade. The researchers said that the still- rising levels of human-made greenhouse gas emissions are the main culprit.

In the last decade, humankind has been releasing about 54 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year into Earth’s atmosphere through various industrial activities. The failure to curb these emissions means that humankind can now only release about 250 more gigatonnes of carbon dioxide before global warming reaches the 1.5 degrees C limit.

It is critical that policy makers and the general public.