Climate change accelerated during 2011-2020 -report

…fueling a need for urgent, coordinated action

The rate of climate change surged during 2011-2020, undermining food security, national development and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to a report launched recently.

In The Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Accelerating Climate Change, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reveals there was record warming of land and oceans, unprecedented glacier loss and an accelerated rise in sea levels over the past decade.

The WMO report calls for urgent and “synergistic” action to limit global temperatures to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and achieve the SDGs in tandem.

Kaveh Zahedi, Director of the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment (OCB) at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), says agriculture should play a crucial part in the response: “These records matter. We need to react now. We can’t just be passive observers of a changing climate and agriculture has a central role to play. There are solutions that agriculture and food systems can offer that can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as building resilience, improving adaptation capabilities, and addressing food security challenges.”

Key messages

The Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Accelerating Climate Change labels this past decade the warmest on record for land and ocean, with the global temperature already at 1.1 °C above pre-industrial (1750) levels. It states that more countries reported record high temperatures than in any previous decade, in some places more than two degrees Celsius above the 1981-2010 average.

The WMO report notes that atmospheric concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases (GHGs), carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, continued to climb between 2011 and 2020. Glaciers thinned by approximately one metre per year on average during this period. Greenland and Antarctica together lost 38 percent more ice than in the previous ten years. The global sea level rose at an annual rate of 4.5mm per year, more than double the rate observed during 1993-2002.

The Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Accelerating Climate Change adds that extreme events had devastating consequences on food security, contributing to mass migration and impairing health.

Weather-related hazards, including flooding and storms, triggered more than 22 million internal displacements on average per year during the decade. Millions were forced from their homes by drought, coastal erosion, rising sea levels and desertification.

The WMO report authors explain that this threatened agricultural productivity and played a significant role in frustrating global efforts to end hunger and food insecurity. The number of undernourished people reportedly climbed to 9.3 percent of the world population by 2020, after decreasing in the previous decade from 13.1 to 8.6 percent. This reinforces the findings in the recent FAO report, The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2023.

Recommendations

The Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Accelerating Climate Change authors recommend, to prevent further warming and climate change spiraling out of control, GHG emissions must be drastically lowered.

They call for urgent and coordinated action to address the climate challenge while also ensuring progress towards global food security goals. They say integrated approaches could unlock solutions to the multiple challenges simultaneously.

But the WMO warns that public and private climate finance, which almost doubled between 2011 and 2022, needs to increase at least seven times by the end of this decade to achieve climate objectives.

The figure doesn’t surprise FAO OCB Director Kaveh Zahedi, who is calling for greater financial investment in climate and energy-smart agriculture solutions: “There is still a major under-investment in agrifood system solutions without which we have no hope of keeping to 1.5 °C and building resilience. Finance is not flowing towards the solutions that can make a real difference, from sustainable livestock and agroforestry to soil regeneration and energy smart agriculture. Investment in agrifood systems transformation can deliver multiple benefits for climate and food security.”

Some glimmers of hope 

The Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Accelerating Climate Change offers some positive news. The hole in the ozone layer was reportedly smaller during 2011-2020 than during the two previous decades. The report also notes that improvements in early warning systems, forecasts and disaster management helped reduce the number of casualties from extreme events. The 2011-2020 decade was the first since 1950 during which there were no single short-term events with 10 000 deaths or more. Economic losses from such events including heatwaves and cyclones did however increase during the decade.

The WMO report, Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Accelerating Climate Change, is based on data from weather and statistics offices, climate centres and UN agencies, including a significant contribution from personnel at FAO’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and the Environment.

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