Monstrous fires in Greece and Turkey, a historic "heat dome" in Canada, unprecedented temperatures and unprecedented fires in Siberia ... these last few months have sadly illustrated the now visible effects of global warming from start to finish. other of the planet.
According to the latest report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), unveiled this Sunday, October 31, the opening day of COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, the climate machine is racing.
WMO experts estimate that the seven years from 2015 to 2021 will probably be the hottest on record and they go so far as to describe a global climate entering "uncharted territory".
This annual report "reveals that our planet is changing before our eyes," commented UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, "from the depths of the ocean to the peaks of the mountains, under the inexorable effect of melting glaciers and extreme weather phenomena, all over the planet, the planet's ecosystems and populations are being damaged ”.
The disturbing rise in sea level
In 2021 alone, over the first nine months, the average temperature has gained +1.09 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era. The Paris Agreement signed in 2015 aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit warming to well below + 2 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, if possible +1.5 ° C. But with current trends, the UN climate experts, gathered within the IPCC (intergovernmental expert group on climate change), have warned against the risk of reaching +1.5 ° C around from 2030.
The commitments of the States, too weak, would lead to a catastrophic warming of 2.7 ° C. Even with just one degree more, the litany of disasters is already underway, as the WMO report shows, which further points out that the average sea level rise has reached 4.4 mm per year between 2013 and 2021, with a “record” in 2021. In fifty years, meteorological disasters have multiplied by five.
“There is nothing exceptional about extreme phenomena,” underlines its president Petteri Taalas.
“The intensification of extreme events, which we have been announcing for twenty years, is happening, sighs climatologist Jean Jouzel, member of the IPCC.
And yet, some still don't want to take us seriously.
When we see that the thermometer rose to 50 ° C this summer in British Columbia, yes, we can say that we are entering uncharted waters.
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