Europe had its second warmest year on record in 2022, european union (EU) scientists said on Tuesday (10), while the climate crisis triggers record extreme events that have already reduced crop yields, dried rivers and caused thousands of deaths.

The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said 2022 was also the fifth warmest year in the world by a small margin. C3S records date back to 1950, but other longer data sets confirm that last year was the fifth warmest in the world since at least 1850. The last eight years have been the hottest eight on record, the European service said.

The planet is now 1.2°C warmer than in pre-industrial times as a result of man-made climate change. The Copernicus Climate Change Service said temperatures in Europe have more than doubled the global average in the past three decades.

Last summer was the hottest on record in Europe, breaking temperature records in countries such as Italy, Spain and Croatia. Severe heatwaves have caused more than 20,000 "excess" deaths in countries such as France, Germany, Spain and Britain, according to C3S. In 2023, the new year's eve on the continent was marked by mild temperatures and lack of snow in ski resorts, events that are still being analyzed by scientists.

Combined with the scarcity of rain, the heat triggered a widespread drought that initial analysis ranked as the worst in Europe in 500 years. Low water levels delayed shipping along the Reno in Germany, while the lack of rain affected hydroelectric power generation and reduced the yield of corn and soybean crops.

The hot and dry period has fuelled intense forest fires in countries from Spain to Slovenia, releasing more emissions in the EU and Britain than in any summer in the past 15 years.

Global temperatures will only stop rising if countries reduce their emissions to "net zero": meaning they do not release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than they remove. Despite these long-term promises, global emissions continue to increase. Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged 417 ppm by 2022 – the highest level in more than 2 million years, C3S said.

Other parts of the world faced a year of climate devastation as global warming continued to hit the world's poor and vulnerable populations harder. Floods in Pakistan, for example, have killed at least 1,700 people, while drought has decimated livestock populations in Somalia.

Source: Um só Planeta