On video: fires are raging in Europe (Photo: Reuters)
Today is celebrated around the world as the 52nd Earth Day.
Earth Day was founded in 1970 in the United States by Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin who organized a national demonstration to raise awareness of environmental issues.
The protest became the largest in history - with more than 20 million people taking to the streets.
The day is celebrated in more than 193 countries around the world, and this year's theme is "Invest in our ball".
The website of the event states that "this is the moment to change everything".
Unfortunately, however, there are not many reasons to celebrate this year, given the worsening of the climate crisis in 2022, states a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The
annual State of the Climate report published yesterday (Friday) analyzed a series of climate indicators - including pollution levels, sea level rise and ocean warming - to understand how the globe is responding to climate change and the effects it has on people and nature.
The picture that emerges is bleak: "2022 was a year of extremism in the sphere - a trend that has been going on for several years," Omar Bador, head of the monitoring division at the WMO, told CNN.
A series of climate records were broken, many of them expected to be broken again this year:
- The oceans warmed to a record temperature and about 60% experienced at least one marine heat wave.
- Sea levels have climbed to the highest level on record due to melting glaciers and oceans expanding as they warm.
- Antarctic sea ice shrank by 1.92 million square kilometers in February 2022, the lowest level ever.
- The European Alps witnessed a record year of glacier melting, with Switzerland the main sufferer after losing 6% of its glacier extent between 2021 and 2022.
- Levels of pollution that warms the planet, including methane and carbon dioxide gases, peaked in 2021, the latest year for which global data is available.
Fires in Chile (Photo: Reuters)
Fires in France (Photo: Reuters)
Fires in Spain (Photo: Reuters)
On video: Fire at a waste site near Delhi (documentation on social networks)
These climate indicators are an important expression of the state of the planet, the report states, and the extreme weather events that occur due to climate change are how the immediate effects of the changes are felt more strongly. "Greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise last year
and populations around the world are severely affected from extreme weather and climate events," WMO Secretary-General Petri Tales said in a statement.
According to him, extreme weather events caused by climate change "have affected tens of millions, exacerbated food insecurity and mass migration and cost billions of dollars in losses and damages."
In 2022, China experienced the longest and most severe drought in the country's history.
Droughts were also recorded in East Africa, with more than 20 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia facing a severe food crisis.
Many states in the west and south of the United States also suffered from a significant drought last year, and extreme heat waves in Europe led to an excess of 15,000 deaths, according to estimates.
In Pakistan, record rainfall has left a third of the country under water.
More than 1,700 people died in the floods, 8 million were displaced from their homes - and the cost of the damage is about 30 billion dollars.
Another report published on Thursday by the European Union's Capernicus Climate Change Service, which focused on the effects of climate change in Europe in 2022, found that there had been some "alarming" changes in the continent's climate, including the hottest summer ever, unprecedented marine heat waves in the Mediterranean and huge fires.
According to Bador, those who are hit the hardest are "communities and countries that contribute the least to climate change" but suffer disproportionately from its consequences.
More in Walla!
The climate crisis is not burning high enough on the political agenda
To the full article
On video: the damage of the floods in Pakistan (Photo: Reuters)
Fish die from heat in Australia (photo: screenshot, Twitter)
Heat wave in the UK (Photo: GettyImages)
On video: fires rage across Europe, Britain breaks heat records (Photo: Reuters)
Melting glaciers in the Alps in Italy (Photo: Reuters)
Drought in the Loire River in France (Photo: Reuters)
The last eight years have been recorded as the hottest years in history.
The average global temperature in 2022 climbed 1.15% above the level recorded before the industrial revolution - and the world continues to warm on its way to pass the fateful 1.5% degree mark.
Scientists are particularly concerned about the late arrival of El Niño this year, which is expected to lead to more warming records being broken in 2023 and 2024.
El Niño is part of a broader cyclical climatic phenomenon known as "El Niño - Southern Oscillation", in which the water surface temperature in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, near the equator, alternately rises and falls relative to the multi-year average temperature.
In general, an El Niño period is defined when the water temperature is half a degree Celsius higher than average.
The hottest year on record so far was 2016, "but it's only a matter of time until this record is also broken," Bador said.
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