UN: 2023 Hottest; More to Com 11/30 06:57

UN: 2023 Hottest; More to Com 11/30 06:57

   The U.N. weather agency said Thursday that 2023 is all but certain to be the 
hottest year on record, and warning of worrying trends that suggest increasing 
floods, wildfires, glacier melt, and heat waves in the future.

   DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- The U.N. weather agency said Thursday 
that 2023 is all but certain to be the hottest year on record, and warning of 
worrying trends that suggest increasing floods, wildfires, glacier melt, and 
heat waves in the future.

   The World Meteorological Organization also warned that the average 
temperature for the year is up some 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees 
Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial times -- a mere one-tenth of a degree under a 
target limit for the end of the century as laid out by the Paris climate accord 
in 2015.

   The WMO secretary-general said the onset earlier this year of El Nino, the 
weather phenomenon marked by heating in the Pacific Ocean, could tip the 
average temperature next year over the 1.5-degree (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) 
target cap set in Paris.

   "It's practically sure that during the coming four years we will hit this 
1.5, at least on temporary basis," Petteri Taalas said in an interview. "And in 
the next decade we are more or less going to be there on a permanent basis."

   WMO issued the findings for Thursday's start of the U.N.'s annual climate 
conference, this year being held in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates city of 
Dubai.

   The U.N. agency said the benchmark of key Paris accord goal will be whether 
the 1.5-degree increase is sustained over a 30-year span -- not just a single 
year -- but others say the world needs more clarity on that.

   "Clarity on breaching the Paris agreement guard rails will be crucial," said 
Richard Betts of Britain's Met Office, the lead author of a new paper on the 
issue with University of Exeter published in the journal Nature.

   "Without an agreement on what actually will count as exceeding 1.5 degrees 
Celsius, we risk distraction and confusion at precisely the time when action to 
avoid the worst effects of climate change becomes even more urgent," he added.

   WMO's Taalas said that whatever the case, the world appears on course to 
blow well past that figure anyway.

   "We are heading toward 2.5 to 3 degrees warming and that would mean that we 
would see massively more negative impacts of climate change," Taalas said, 
pointing to glacier loss and sea level rise over "the coming thousands of 
years."

   The nine years 2015 to 2023 were the warmest on record, WMO said. Its 
findings for this year run through October, but it says the last two months are 
not likely to be enough to keep 2023 from being a record-hot year.

   Still, there are "some signs of hope" -- including a turn toward renewable 
energies and more electric cars, which help reduce the amount of carbon that is 
spewed into the atmosphere, trapping heat inside," Taalas said.

   His message for attendee at the U.N climate conference, known as COP28?

   "We have to reduce our consumption of coal, oil and natural gas dramatically 
to be able to limit the warming to the Paris limits," he said. "Luckily, things 
are happening. But still, we in the Western countries, in the rich countries, 
we are still consuming oil, a little bit less coal than in the past, and still 
natural gas."

   "Reduction of fossil fuel consumption -- that's the key to success."