2023: A year of climate change

Mark Lumsdon-Taylor, Partner and Head of ESG, reflects on a year of overwhelming climate change and what must be considered by business as we move to a greener future.

Of course, I understand how difficult it is to attribute a particular climate event to human activity but, in my opinion, it is time we stopped referencing these events in a singular way and started to report the trends.

The simple fact is that, when it comes to climate change impacts, 2023 was a record-breaking year.

Extreme Weather

In fact, as I write, a BBC headline screams ‘2023 confirmed as world’s hottest year on record’.

Andrew Dessler, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Texas A&M University, noted ‘what struck me was not just that (2023) was record-breaking, but the amount by which it broke previous records.’

The 2023 State of the Climate report, which measures how the planet is faring based on 35 ‘vital signs’, makes for uncomfortable reading.

The authors reported being ‘shocked by the ferocity of extreme weather events in 2023’, claiming ‘we are afraid of the uncharted territory we have now entered.’

In 2023, there were over 38 days that were more than 1.5ºC hotter than average. This is higher than any other year on record.

Indeed, the World Meteorological Organisation claimed that 1.5ºC of warming will start to become the norm in the next five years, and permanent by the mid-2030s.

2023 also saw sea surface temperatures hit record highs for four months, almost 1ºC hotter than normal comparative periods. This has had a devastating effect on Antarctic sea ice, which has been shrinking drastically over the past decade. In 2023 the Antarctic sea ice collapsed to a record low, at around a million square kilometres smaller than the previous record from 1986. That’s an area of ice roughly four times the size of the UK.

Wildfires and storms reached new levels in 2023, prompting reports that the Earth’s climate may already have passed tipping points that will be hard to recover from.

According to Dr Christopher Wolf, co-author of the 2023 State of the Climate report, ‘the frequency and severity of those disasters might be outpacing rising temperatures. By the end of the 21^st century, as many as three to six billion people may find themselves outside the Earth’s liveable regions, meaning they will be encountering severe heat, limited food availability and elevated mortality rates.’

Extreme flooding was also another feature of 2023. Following storms Babet, Ciaran, Debi, Elin, Fergus, Gerrit and Henk, huge swathes of the UK were inundated with water. More than 1,000 homes in England were flooded and some villages made completely inaccessible, particularly in Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology revealed that the period between July and December in 2023 was the wettest on record for the UK.

According to Linda Speight of Oxford University, ‘Climate change is warming the atmosphere. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture so that when it rains, the rainfall is heavier and more likely to lead to flooding. In particular, we know that climate change is leading to warmer and wetter winters in the UK. We will unfortunately experience more winters like (2023) in the future.’

Steve Turner from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology concurs: ‘Continued human-induced climate warming in future is likely to result in further increases in peak river flows, which will cause more severe flooding and impacts on people, property and public services.’

Although there were other factors in 2023, such as natural climate patterns like El Nino, these simply exacerbated the increases that climate change is already causing.

Since the last State of the Climate report, 20 out of the 35 vital signs have hit new record highs.

Carbon Emissions

It is estimated that concentrations of carbon dioxide now stand at around 421 parts per million. Levels that high haven’t been seen since the Pilocene age, around 4 million years ago, when oceans were around 20 metres higher than they are today.

Carbon dioxide emissions have reached a new high at around 39 gigatonnes per year. Emissions need to be declining fast by the end of the decade if we are to stand any chance of global warming being limited to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels in line with the Paris Agreement. These emissions are being driven, in no small measure, by fossil fuel subsidies which reached new heights in 2022. Due to the war in Ukraine, the amount nations paid to keep the prices of polluting coal, gas and oil artificially low reached £900 million which is more than double the 2021 figure.

Renewable Energy

A solitary bright light on the horizon is the growth of renewable energy. Enough wind and solar power was generated in 2023 to power the UK more than four times over, and it is set to continue growing.

A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) claims that by 2030, renewable energy will provide as much as half the planet’s electricity.

Whilst the move away from fossil fuels is becoming increasingly inexorable, the IEA warned that, even with projected progress, the use of fossil fuels will still be too high, putting the planet on course to warm by as much as 2.4ºC this century. To put not too fine a point on it, that is far above safe limits.

So, where does that leave us?

The 2023 State of the Climate report identified six key areas that we need to focus on to support climate change mitigation and, because of the way threats are linked, affect biodiversity, food security and disease.

Some of the focus areas are easier said than delivered such as stopping global warming. Phasing out the use of coal is an absolute priority but, as we saw from COP 28, not an easy challenge to gain global agreement on.

Very important was the recommendation that more research is required regarding how carbon dioxide can be absorbed. The ‘silver bullet’ of carbon capture has ebbed and flowed in recent years, however the report focuses on expanding nature-based solutions such as restoring forests. Carbon Capture is certainly an attractive solution not least because of the scale of its potential; but it is still infant technology, and the report warns that relying on its development cannot be an alternative to cutting emissions.

Looking back on 2023, it is marked as a bad year for planetary and climate health. I’m loathe to say all is not lost because unless we start thinking differently, that might well be the case.

In Conclusion

It seems to me that the attitude we need to take towards climate change is the same as the one we should take for the COP series. Individually there may be highlights, but it’s the trend that’s important if we are to affect real and sustainable advances in climate change mitigation.