China – Desdemona Despair

Map showing worldwide natural disasters in 2023. Worldwide, natural disasters in 2023 resulted in losses of around US$250 billion (previous year US$250 billion). Loss statistics were characterised by the large number of severe regional storms. Such high thunderstorm losses have never been recorded before in the USA or in Europe: assets worth around US$66 billion were destroyed in North America, of which US$50 billion was insured, while in Europe the figure was US$10 billion (€9.1 billion), of which US$8 billion (€7.3 billion) was insured. A large body of scientific research indicates that climate change favours severe weather with heavy hailstorms. Similarly, loss statistics from thunderstorms in North America and other regions are trending upward. Graphic: Munich Re

May 1, 2024

Munich Re: Record thunderstorm losses in 2023 – “The warming of the earth that has been accelerating for some years is intensifying the extreme weather in many regions, leading to increasing loss potentials”

9 January 2024 (Munich Re) – Worldwide, natural disasters in 2023 resulted in losses of around US$ 250bn (previous year US$ 250bn), with insured losses of US$ 95bn (previous year US$ 125bn). Overall losses tally with the five-year average, while insured losses were slightly below the average figure of US$ 105bn. Unlike in previous years, […]

Twenty-first century groundwater-level trends in globally distributed monitoring wells. Each point represents one monitoring well, coloured to represent the Theil–Sen trend of annual median groundwater levels during the twenty-first century. Blue and red points indicate shallowing and deepening, respectively, of groundwater levels over time, with darker colours indicating faster rates. a, Spatial distributions of groundwater-level trends in globally distributed monitoring wells. b–o, Regional maps illustrating the substantial spatial variability in groundwater-level trends. Supplementary Notes 16 and 17 show monitoring wells and their groundwater-level trends at subcontinental scales (Supplementary Note 16) and in 207 individual aquifer systems. Graphic: Jasechko, et al., 2024 / Nature

April 28, 2024

Groundwater resources are drying up across the globe – “Climate variability and change can impact water supplies underground as well as above-ground”

By Matthew Rozsa 24 January 2024 (Salon) – Humans rely on groundwater for many things, but especially our food. Roughly 30 percent of all the planet’s available freshwater comes from groundwater, or water that is found underground in the spaces between rocks, soil and sand. It is primarily used for agriculture and billions of humans are dependent […]

Global energy-related CO2 emissions and their annual change, 1900-2023. Total energy-related CO2 emissions increased by 1.1 percent in 2023. Far from falling rapidly – as is required to meet the global climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement – CO2 emissions reached a new record high of 37.4 Gt in 2023. This estimate is based on the IEA’s detailed, cutting-edge region-by-region and fuel-by-fuel analysis of the latest official national energy data, supplemented by data on economic and weather conditions. Graphic: IEA

April 28, 2024

IEA: CO2 emissions in 2023 reached record high – Weather effects and continued Covid-19 reopening played a significant role in driving emissions in 2023

March 2024 (IEA) – CO2 Emissions in 2023 provides a complete picture of energy-related emissions in 2023. The report finds that clean energy growth has limited the rise in global emissions, with 2023 registering an increase of 1.1 percent. Weather effects and continued Covid-19 reopening played a significant role in driving emissions in 2023. Advanced economies saw […]

Coal power plant additions and retirements for 20 countries in 2023 (GW). China added 47 GW of coal in 2023, double the amount from the rest of the world combined. Globally, more coal power was added than retired in 2023. Data: GEM Global Coal Plant Tracker, January 2024. Graphic: Daniel Dunford / Sky News

April 27, 2024

New coal plants in China soar despite President Xi’s pledge to “strictly control” dirtiest fuel – “We can’t afford blips”

By Victoria Seabrook and Daniel Dunford 11 April 2024 (Sky News) – China ramped up coal power capacity last year, according to new analysis, despite a pledge to “strictly control” the dirtiest fossil fuel. The country added 47.4 Gigawatts (GW) of new coal power in 2023, more than double the amount added by the rest […]

Map showing notable economic loss events due to natural and climate disasters in 2023. Global economic losses in 2023 were higher than the 21st century average. Economic losses from global natural disasters in 2023 are estimated at $380 billion, above long-term and short-term averages, after adjusting historical losses to today’s values using the U.S. Consumer Price Index. All continents recorded remarkable natural disaster events in 2023 and multiple countries faced the most significant disasters in their modern histories. The global map shows event and peril patterns that contributed to the overall economic losses in 2023. The largest loss driver was earthquake, yet this was largely caused by a handful of events, notably the earthquake sequence in Turkey and Syria. Severe convective storms came second, with the largest individual losses concentrated in the United States and Europe. Graphic: Aon

February 19, 2024

Aon: Number of billion-dollar disasters in 2023 highest on record – Severe convective storms were the most damaging peril for insurers

LONDON, 23 January 2024 (Aon) – Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm, today published its 2024 Climate and Catastrophe Insight report, which identifies global natural disaster and climate trends to help make better decisions to manage volatility and enhance global resilience. The report reveals that the 398 global natural disaster events caused a $380 billion (2022: $355 billion) […]

Percentage of documented and undocumented mines, by country. More than half of the global mining areas (56 percent) visible from satellite images have no production information available listed in a global compilation from the S&P Capital IQ Pro database. The total worldwide mining land use for mining in 120,000 km2, with 67,000 km2 undocumented. Graphic: Nature

January 3, 2024

Impacts for half of the world’s mining areas are undocumented – 56 percent of global mining areas visible from satellite images have no production information available

By Victor Maus and Tim T. Werner 3 January 2024 (Nature) – Mining is a crucial industry — from iron and copper to gravel and sand, we depend on it for the basic building blocks of the modern world. It is a fast changing sector, as the clean energy transition and digitalization boost demand for […]

Aerial view of the Donnie Creek wildfire in northeastern British Columbia in May 2023. The massive blaze ripped across more than 1.44 million acres of land throughout the late spring and summer, making it the largest wildfire on record for the Canadian province. Photo: BC Wildfire Service

December 30, 2023

Ten “you must be kidding” weather and climate facts of 2023

By Bob Henson and Jeff Masters 26 December 2023 (Yale Climate Connections) – The drumbeat of record weather and climate phenomena — hottest, wettest, fieriest, fiercest, and so on — can sometimes fade into the background, like the repetitive backdrop to a mournful dirge. Then there are those sharp moments, like a cymbal crash, when […]

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2021 and trend since 2000, including inventory-based Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) CO2 in GtCO2e (top) and Per capita GHG emissions in 2021 and trend since 2000, including inventory-based LULUCF CO2 in tCO2e/capita (bottom). Graphic: UNEP

December 29, 2023

Petrostates planning huge expansion of fossil fuels, says UN report – “These plans throw humanity’s future into question. Governments must stop saying one thing and doing another.”

By Damian Carrington 8 November 2023 (The Guardian) – The world’s fossil fuel producers are planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over, a UN report has found. Experts called the plans “insanity” which “throw humanity’s future into question”. The energy plans of the petrostates contradicted their climate policies and pledges, the report said. […]

A map of the world plotted with some of the most significant climate events that occurred during November 2023. Graphic: NOAA/NCEI

December 29, 2023

NOAA reports 2023 hottest year on record, so far – “We will look back at 2023 and think of it as: remember that year that wasn’t so bad?”

By Lauren Sommer 28 December 2023 (NPR) – As 2023 draws to a close, it’s going out on top. “It’s looking virtually certain at this point that 2023 will be the hottest year on record,” says Zeke Hausfather, climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit that analyzes climate trends. Though temperature records from December have […]

Global mean surface temperature anomaly, 1970-2023. The average global temperature in 2023 was 1.32°C above that during the pre-industrial baseline period of 1850 to 1900, surpassing the previous record of 1.29°C that was set from October 2015 to September 2016. Data: Climate Central. Graphic: Nature

November 10, 2023

Earth had its hottest year on record in 2023 – “This is the hottest temperature that our planet has experienced in something like 125,000 years”

By Carissa Wong 10 November 2023 (Nature) – The past 12 months were the hottest on record. Some 7.3 billion people worldwide were exposed, for at least 10 days, to temperatures that were heavily influenced by global warming, with one-quarter of people facing dangerous levels of extreme heat over the past 12 months, according to a report […]