In a result that surprises approximately no one who has stepped outside recently or accidentally touched a car hood in July, scientists have officially declared 2023 as the hottest year on record. With temperatures soaring across the globe and ice caps melting faster than your patience at a long family dinner, this latest milestone in climate change has joined the world’s growing list of dubious achievements alongside reality TV spin-offs and questionable fashion comebacks.
The announcement comes courtesy of the United Nations and several top-tier scientific agencies who presumably long for the good old days when their biggest worry was whether people were flossing correctly. According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, global temperatures blew right past previous records like an overcaffeinated sprinter. They reported that last year was 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels, which in climate terms is just a hair’s breadth from the much-discussed 1.5-degree threshold that world leaders have promised, repeatedly and solemnly, not to cross. Promises which so far appear to have the same durability as a chocolate teapot.
The blistering heat wasn’t just theoretical or reserved for unread data spreadsheets either. Real people, in real places, felt the burn. From heat domes in North America to record-smashing temperatures in Europe and Asia, 2023 delivered a yearlong masterclass in sweaty discomfort and alarming statistics. Ocean temperatures also reached all-time highs, which is presumably terrible news for polar bears, coral reefs, and anyone hoping for a pleasant dip at the beach.
In response to this sweltering development, UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a characteristically stern warning, stating, and we paraphrase only slightly, that the planet is in hot water both metaphorically and somewhat literally. He called for immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to renewable energy, although given humanity’s track record of swift decisive climate action so far, one can be forgiven for feeling somewhat underwhelmed.
This news arrives right on the heels of COP28, held in Dubai of all places, where world leaders gathered indoors in air-conditioned comfort to talk earnestly about cooling the planet. Among the takeaways were vague commitments, hopeful declarations, and the comforting aroma of progress, or at least the simulation of it.
“We have never seen a year like 2023,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus. “This is a wake-up call, but it’s not the first.”
Of course, the planet has been leaving wake-up calls for decades now, most of which humanity has picked up, snoozed, and rolled over. Still, perhaps 2023’s record-breaking heat will be the moment that galvanises action, or at least something resembling mild concern.
The Earth is heating up like a dinner forgotten in the microwave but at least now it has our attention, somewhere between the third coffee and the next catastrophe.