Political leaders around the globe, including in Australia, are being urged to set stronger emission reduction targets of net zero by 2030, after two new reports showed global warming is accelerating.
The United Nations agency on weather and climate said data in its new confirms records were set in 2021 on greenhouse gas concentrations, sea-level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) found the overall trend is an increase in global warming, despite the small blips of reduced car use during the pandemic and the impact of La Niña conditions at the start and end of the year.
"While the key indicators show that climate continues to change, information on socioeconomic impacts highlights the vulnerability of populations to current weather and climate events," Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, said in the foreword of the report.
"Loss and damages of more than US$100 billion (A$142 billion), as well as severe impacts on food security and humanitarian aspects due to high-impact weather and climate events have been reported."
According to the WMO State of the Global Climate, the global mean temperature in 2021 was around 1.11 degrees Celsius above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average.
A new record was set for global mean sea level rise, which increased to an average of 4.5 millimetres per year over the period 2013–2021.
Rapid loss in ice mass contributed to the result, which represents a doubling in the rate compared to the period between 1993 and 2002.
The WMO report also confirms the long-term trend already documented by UN scientists in the IPCC reports, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Berkeley Earth.
That body of data shows the past seven years were the warmest seven years on record.
Several climate records set
Ocean heat is at a record high, with an accelerating increase in the past 20 years. Much of the ocean experienced at least one strong marine heatwave at some point in 2021.
A new record was set in greenhouse gas concentrations with an ongoing rise documented in the monthly average CO2 recorded at Mona Loa in Hawaii, which was 420.23 ppm in April 2022.
That builds on the previous global high set in 2020 which recorded a level of 413.2 parts per million (ppm) globally - or 149 per cent of the pre-industrial level.
Much of the ocean experienced at least one strong marine heatwave at some point in 2021, according to the World Meteorological Organisation report. Source: AAP
"And the main reason it is still accelerating is that we're putting increasing amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere," he told SBS News.
"There was a minor pause during the pandemic but the acceleration has resumed; and each year we're putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
"As long as we keep doing that all of the indicators of temperature, of rainfall change, of worse floods of worse bushfires, they're all going to keep getting worse."
Climate refugees, food insecurity
Exceptional heatwaves broke records across western North America and the Mediterranean last year. Death Valley in California reached 54.4 degrees Celsius on 9 July 2021, a value seen in 2020 and the highest since at least the 1930s.
The Canadian province of British Columbia recorded 49.6 degrees Celsius on 29 June 2021, contributing to more than 500 reported heat-related deaths.
Epidemiologist Colin Butler at the Australian National University has contributed to the IPCC report on health impacts.
He said the issue of climate refugees and food insecurity should not be overlooked.
"Already we've got climate refugees in Australia," he said.
"We've got people living in cars or caravans who are flooded from Lismore, houses are uninhabitable, but globally I think it is becoming desperate.
"There's a report that one in four Africans currently are facing significant food insecurity. It's a phenomenally high number and parts of Africa have food insecurity that traditionally didn't have it.
"And also of course with the food price, not just the food price, but the crops failing or the animals failing, people are naturally going to look for some alternative and lots of them are going to end up in horrible refugee camps I'm afraid."
Call for politicians globally to set stronger climate targets
Another released on Tuesday found that real-time data showed global warming has reached dangerous levels of between 1.2 and 1.5 degrees Celsius in key ecosystems, including the West Antarctic glaciers, eastern Amazonian rainforest, and the world's coral systems.
The report's authors at the Melbourne-based Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration said the cascading effect of these areas reaching high levels of warming increases the risk of more severe impacts from runaway climate change.
Report co-author Ian Dunlop said now that there is confirmation of such impacts, the emission targets — including in Australia — need to be updated to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.
"The bottom line of this is that the threat of climate change has been badly underestimated," he told SBS News.
"And that is what is starting to emerge is that because have not taken action, these threats are now emerging and we are now very badly prepared to handle them. So we have to take precautionary action to ensure they don't get away from us."
Net zero by 2030 is more rapid timeline than the latest guidance from the United Nations scientists released last month, which states that to stay under 1.5 degrees of warming, emissions must peak by 2025, and rapidly fall to net zero by 2050.
In Australia, neither the major parties, the Greens or the teal independents have a target of net zero emissions by 2030.
The Coalition has a 26-28 per cent cut by 2030, Labor has a target of 43 per cent, the teal independents have backed a 60 per cent target; and the Greens want a 75 per cent cut.
The WMO's latest report is set to be used as the official document in the UN climate negotiations COP27, which will take place in Egypt in November.
The report's release comes ahead of the five-day annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which begins on 22 May.
After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, more than 2,000 leaders and experts from around the world are expected to attend the event to talk about topics including tackling climate change.
