2010 Starts the Hottest Decade in History, U.N. Says, As Emissions Rise Again

Preliminary data reported by the World Meteorological Organization during their yearly climate change evaluation suggests the period from 2010 to 2019 is "almost certain" to be the hottest decade on record.

Global temperatures so far this year were 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial percentage between 1850-1900, according to WMO.

WMO underscored that human-made emissions from transporting goods, growing crops, burning fossil fuels, and building infrastructure imply 2019 is set to break the record for atmospheric carbon concentrations, locking in further warming, the WMO said.

Oceans, which absorb 90 percent of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gases, are now at their highest recorded temperatures.

The oceans are now a quarter more acidic than 150 years ago, endangering vital marine ecosystems upon which billions of people rely for living.

The global mean sea level reached its highest on record in October 2019, fuelled by the 329 billion tonnes of ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet in 12 months.

ALSO READ: Greenland Ice Sheet is Becoming More Unstable as it Fractures

Up to 22 million displaced

The consequences of humanity's unplacatable growth-at-any cost consumption mean millions are already counting the damage far from climate change being a phenomenon for future generations to confront. Each of the last four decades has been hotter than the previous.

WMO said more than 10 million people were internally displaced in the first half of 2019. Seven million out of those 10 million victims were directly due to storms, floods, and drought. Further displacements due to weather extremes could reach 22 million by the end of 2019, the WMO added.

"Weather and climate-related risks hit hard once again in 2019," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. He added that heatwaves and floods, which used to be 'once in a century' events, are becoming more regular events.

This year, at just 1 degree Celcius hotter than pre-industrial times, has already witnessed deadly heatwaves in Europe, Australia, and Japan, superstorms devastate southeast Africa, and wildfires rage out of control in Australia and California.

'Not adapting'

Friederike Otto, deputy director of the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute, said the WMO report "[underscores] that [everyone] are not even [used] to 1.1 degrees of warming." She attributed the 1.1-degree increase in temperature due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Kat Kramer, Christian Aid's global climate lead, said the WMO report pointed the need for concrete progress in Madrid where leaders and delegates from different countries are currently discussing the rules for the 2015 Paris climate accord. 

"Delegates have no excuse to [hinder] progress or [pull] their feet when the science is [revealing] how critically action is needed," she said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in 2018, described how vital it was for humanity to aim for a safer cap of 1.5 degrees Celcius - ideally through lessening greenhouse gas emissions and shifting the global economy to renewable energy.

The wold needed to cut carbon emissions by 7.6 percent each year, every year until 2030 to hit 1.5 degrees Celcius, United Nations said last week in its annual "emissions gap" assessment.

Joeri Rogelj, Grantham Lecturer in Climate Change at Imperial College London, said the economic activities continue to use the atmosphere as a waste dump for greenhouse gases.

Earth, even if all Paris pledges were honored, is still on course to be more than 3C warmer by the end of the century. According to Taalas, there is "no indication" of a fade-out of global warming. "The [amount] will be higher if we continue our current behavior," he said.