and heat pumps. When it comes to the Earth’s vital statistics, however, the outlook remains less promising.In the next few weeks, major climate science research groups are expected to issue their conclusions about 2022’s global average temperature — and it’s likely to be hot. Aissued by the World Meteorological Organisation in November predicted the year would rank as the fifth or sixth hottest on record, 1.15ºC above the 1850-1900 average.
Driving temperatures upward are record emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement production rose an estimated 1% last year over 2021, toof carbon dioxide. That’s even higher than 2019, the year before the pandemic caused an unprecedented – but temporary – drop in emissions, according to the Global Carbon Project, an international scientific collaboration that makes the estimates every year.
At least 18 countries have seen emissions decrease for more than a decade, according to the most recent “If you look at the system as a whole – the conferences since 2009 until now – they have definitely achieved something,” Niklas Höhne, a climate policy scientist at Germany’s New Climate Institute who contributes to Climate Action Tracker, said at the time. “Now we are in a different world.”