Global Climate Emergency: 2020 recorded as Earth’s hottest decade and tied with 2016 as the hottest year
January 08, 2021
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down multiple economic sectors that drove carbon emissions, the climate emergency continued to worsen in 2020. The year recorded a 7% decrease in fossil fuel burning due to lockdowns caused by the pandemic however, heat-trapping carbon dioxide continued to build up in the atmosphere.
2020’s global temperature was approximately 1.25 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period which also tied with an earlier all-time record high set in 2016, per the data released by Copernicus Climate Change Service. This marked the hottest decade on record.
Scientists have warned that temperatures are rising dangerously close to the 1.50 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, which is the baseline for how global temperatures are changing. 1.50 degrees Celsius is the target that nations the world over collectively pledged to keep the temperature rise below, at the Paris Agreement.
European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) showed that Europe recorded its hottest year at, 1.60 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, as heatwaves hit western Europe in late July and early August. The Arctic and northern Siberia witnessed harsher climate changes where a large region experienced 3 degrees Celsius higher than the long-term average and some locations experienced more than 6 degrees Celsius higher. This caused extensive wildfires within the Arctic Circle, with a record 244m tonnes of CO2 released within the Arctic Circle. In the Arctic, sea ice was also recorded significantly lower in July and October, which was at its lowest in these two months.
The US National Hurricane Center on the other had reported a record 29 tropical storms forming in the Atlantic Ocean in 2020. This broke the earlier record of 28 tropical storms that were recorded in 2005. Due to the increasing human activity related build-up of Carbon Dioxide in the environment, we are approaching a 50% increase(when compared to the pre-industrial period) in emissions. Experts urge that global emissions will need to be brought down to net zero within the next 30 years if we want to limit the global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius.