Rapid reduction in fossil fuel burning urgently needed to preserve liveable conditions, say scientists, as climate damage deepens

2023 “smashed” the record for the hottest year by a huge margin, providing “dramatic testimony” of how much warmer and more dangerous today’s climate is from the cooler one in which human civilisation developed.

The planet was 1.48C hotter in 2023 compared with the period before the mass burning of fossil fuels ignited the climate crisis. The figure is very close to the 1.5C temperature target set by countries in Paris in 2015, although the global temperature would need to be consistently above 1.5C for the target to be considered broken.

Scientists at the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (CCCS) said it was likely the 1.5C mark will be passed for the first time in the next 12 months.

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  • WashedOver
    151·
    1 year ago

    Thanks social media. Everyone is an expert now. We all have our nice echo chamber feedback loops telling us all the things we want to believe is correct.

    No matter the discipline there’s someone that hasn’t even read a book since high school that knows more than experts.

    Anything done to filter out these yahoos is too much censorship by the government…

    The only other time I think it was this bad was during the heyday of yellow journalism but even then you needed to have access to a printing press.