The world is in a state of climate emergency, the head of the United Nations declared Sunday, following the release of the latest State of the Global Climate report from the World Meteorological Organization.
“Earth is being pushed beyond its limits while every key climate indicator is flashing red,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “Earth’s energy imbalance, the gap between heat absorbed and heat released, is the highest on record. Our planet is trapping heat faster than it can shed it.”
The consequences, he added, “are written into the daily lives of families struggling as droughts and storms drive up food prices, in workers pushed to the brink by extreme heat, in farmers watching crops wither, and in communities and homes swept away by floods.”
The report highlights the significance of record-high concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and notes that the effects are visible everywhere, from the 11-year series of hottest-ever years to the way heat is accumulating deep in the oceans. For the first time, it includes a metric called Earth’s energy imbalance as a key climate indicator, measuring the rate at which energy from the sun enters and leaves the planet.
In a stable climate, incoming energy and outgoing energy are about the same. But activities such as burning fossil fuels, growing food and making steel, cement and plastic have upset that balance by pushing levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere to the highest level in at least 800,000 years. That’s trapping more of the sun’s energy in the Earth’s climate system than ever previously recorded.
“Improved scientific understanding of Earth’s energy imbalance shows the disruption is real and the reality facing our planet and climate right now,” said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, adding that, “We will live with these consequences for hundreds and thousands of years.”
The new metric shows a more complete picture of how the climate system is responding to human emissions by integrating all the heat accumulating in the oceans and atmosphere, on land and melting ice, said oceanographer Karina von Schuckmann, a senior science adviser with Mercator Ocean International and member of the WMO’s ocean observations panel.
U.S. climate scientist Ko Barrett, deputy secretary-general of the WMO, said Earth’s energy imbalance also helps show how different parts of the climate system are connected and identifies the central role of the oceans in absorbing most of the trapped heat.
The energy balance indicator highlighted by the WMO focuses on the fundamentals of climate change, said independent climate analyst Leon Simons, who co-authored several recent papers on the topic.
“Energy coming in, energy going out,” he said. “Greenhouse gases change how much energy escapes, and the system responds. That’s really what’s driving everything.”
That basic energy measurement is a better starting point than trying to establish temperature change relative to 1850 in international forums, which then quickly start quibbling over what a tenth of a degree means, Simons said. The measurement is also more significant now because there are 20 to 25 years of data from satellite sensors designed to study Earth’s energy balance.
Science basics also help explain one of the report’s most memorable conclusions. The air temperature people experience is only about 1 to 2 percent of all the energy trapped in the Earth’s systems by greenhouse gases. About 90 to 93 percent heats the oceans while about 5 to 6 percent melts ice and heats land.
The WMO report is compiled with input from national weather agencies, international research programs and U.N. partners, drawing on data from satellites, ocean monitoring systems and weather stations worldwide. It reflects contributions from scientists and institutions across nearly 190 countries.
The information reflects the best available global science, despite concerns during the past year about cuts to U.S. climate programs, said Barrett, the WMO deputy and formerly a veteran leader of U.S. federal climate programs across several presidential administrations.
Critical data flows and climate observations have not been disrupted by any of the major contributors to the report, and she noted that Congress has restored “a lot of the funding” previously reported as having been cut. There also has been no decline in demand for accurate climate information, she added.
Guterres said that climate stress is exposing the fact that “our addiction to fossil fuels is destabilizing both the climate and global security.” Accelerating a global transition to renewable energy would “ deliver climate security, energy security and national security,” he said.
“Today’s report should come with a warning label,” he said. “Climate chaos is accelerating and delay is deadly. The way ahead must be grounded in science, common sense and the courage to act.”
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Bob Berwyn is an Austria-based reporter who has covered climate science and international climate policy for more than a decade. Previously, he reported on the environment, endangered species and public lands for several Colorado newspapers, and also worked as editor and assistant editor at community newspapers in the Colorado Rockies.
