Brussels: Europe could experience its second hottest year on record in 2022, EU scientists said Tuesday, as climate change exacerbates record-breaking weather that slashes crop yields, dries up rivers and thousands of people died.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said 2022 was also the world’s fifth warmest year by a small margin. The C3S record dates back to 1950, but other, longer datasets confirm that 2022 was the world’s fifth warmest year since at least 1850.
The last eight years were eight of the world’s warmest on record
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said the past eight years were the world’s eight hottest on record.
C3S said the planet is now 1.2C warmer than in pre-industrial times as a result of human-caused climate change. Copernicus said temperatures in Europe have risen more than twice the global average over the past three decades.
“We are already facing the devastating consequences of our warming world,” said C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess, who called for urgent action to cut CO2 emissions and adapt to a changing climate.
Summer of 2022 was Europe’s hottest on record
Last summer was Europe’s hottest on record, breaking temperature records in countries including Italy, Spain and Croatia. The severe heatwave caused more than 20,000 “excess” deaths in countries including France, Germany, Spain and Britain.
Combined with a lack of rain, the heat led to widespread drought, which initial analysis pegged as Europe’s worst in 500 years. Low water levels delayed shipping along Germany’s Rhine, while a lack of rain affected hydroelectric power generation and reduced corn and soybean crop yields.
Hot, dry weather fueled intense wildfires in countries from Spain to Slovenia, unleashing more emissions in the European Union and Britain than in any summer of the past 15 years.
Britain could experience its hottest year ever in 2022, its national weather service said on Wednesday.
Global temperatures will only stop rising if countries reduce their emissions to “net zero” – meaning they do not release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than they remove.
The 27-nation European Union, Britain, Canada, Japan and others have pledged to reach that goal by 2050, with China and India aiming to achieve it later.
Despite those long-term pledges, global emissions have continued to rise. C3S said the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2022 will average about 417 ppm – the highest level in more than 2 million years.
Other parts of the world faced a year of climate devastation, as global warming hit the world’s poor and vulnerable populations hardest. Flooding killed at least 1,700 people in Pakistan, while drought decimated livestock populations in Somalia.