The climate annual review 2023: The year of extremes

The climate crisis really gained momentum in 2023. Crises arose worldwide – which did not diminish over the course of the year: floods. Drought. Forest fires. Tornadoes. Heat. Dead. Melting glaciers. Rising sea levels.

The most devastating climate disasters, key legal breakthroughs, assessments and progress in the annual review through the lens of the climate crisis:

The year starts with major climate protests because excavation work is about to start in Lützerath. To prevent this, climate activists occupied the village. Their goal: to preserve Lützerath – and the coal beneath it. If you burn them, you cannot achieve the climate goals. Studies also suggest that coal is not necessary for energy security.

The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia sees it differently. They had agreed with the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and the energy company RWE to bring forward the phasing out of coal in North Rhine-Westphalia to 2030, but to promote larger quantities of lignite in the short term.

For six long days it was a battle between David and Goliath, activists and police, politicians, RWE. The activists lose – Lützerath is demolished.

On February 6, the Australian Weather Agency named a low-pressure area “Freddy”. On the same day it developed into a tropical cyclone.

Two weeks later he crossed the Indian Ocean – some 8,000 kilometers. On February 24, he hits the African mainland in Mozambique, turns around, gets stronger again – and comes back. It is a monstrous storm never seen before in Southeast Africa.

On March 11, ‘Freddy’ crossed Mozambique for the second time, and a day later over Malawi. He leaves behind a picture of destruction. It only disappears after more than a month. A tropical cyclone has never lasted so long. More than 1,000 people have died.

With the publication of its report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned more clearly than ever before about the climate crisis and called for drastic action to reduce CO2 emissions.₂-to reduce emissions.

The 1.5 degree limit will be exceeded in the next ten years. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the climate time bomb was ticking, but that the IPCC report was a “survival guide for humanity.”

In the media, it is no longer Fridays for Future that dominates coverage of the climate crisis, but Renovate Switzerland. They block roads by sticking to them or smear objects and buildings.

Over the course of the year, the protests, but also the treatment of activists, continue to increase. In Germany, where activists call themselves the Last Generation, the police became tougher and passers-by kicked, spit on or hit the activists. Even the question of whether the activists were a criminal organization was raised in Germany and prison sentences without parole were imposed.

In Germany, two public prosecutors are investigating the Last Generation on suspicion of forming a criminal organization. There have been two major raids.

First there is no rain for weeks – Italy is struggling with heat, drought and lack of water. Then suddenly six months of rain falls in 36 hours. The scale of the destruction is comparable to an earthquake, explains the president of the affected region of Emilia-Romagna, Stefan Bonaccini. Numerous towns and villages are flooded and 14 people die.

The so-called heating law is flaring emotions in Germany and the ruling traffic light coalition is at a breaking point. After months of discussion, the traffic light government finally agreed on new requirements for heating systems. In the future, newly installed heating systems must consist of 65 percent renewable energy.

However, under pressure from the FDP, climate protection requirements will only come into effect much later than initially thought. Achieving climate protection goals still seems far away, as environmental organizations criticize. The law will be adopted in the Bundestag on September 8 and will enter into force on January 1, 2024.

Climate protection measures are also being discussed politically in Switzerland: of all three proposals from June, the Climate Protection Act is the most controversial. The SVP held a referendum against the law, which it called the “power guzzler law”. But the law, a counter-proposal to the so-called ‘Glacier Initiative’, is clearly accepted at almost 60 years old.

The federal government wants to approve 3.2 billion francs in financial support, much of which will flow to climate-neutral innovations. About 1.2 billion francs will be distributed to private companies contributing to the fight against climate change.

After several days with temperatures above 40 degrees, intense forest fires raged in Rhodes, destroying 15,000 hectares.

More than 20,000 people have to be evacuated by boat, including countless tourists.

Globally, the first three weeks of July were also the warmest three-week period ever studied, as a study by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology showed: 44.5 degrees were measured in Portugal, 45 degrees in Spain and even 48.2 degrees in Italy degrees.

On August 6, so much hail fell in Tricesimo, Italy, that a 30 centimeter thick layer of ice formed. Two weeks earlier, the winter service had to be deployed in Reutlingen, Germany.

The extremely strong low-pressure system “Daniel” is raging in the Mediterranean Sea. It is therefore also called ‘Medicane’. On September 10, “Daniel” seriously destroyed the coast of civil war-torn Libya. Heavy rainfall causes flooding in the northeast of the country. More than 11,000 people die and more than 30,000 become homeless

But serious flooding also occurs in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Brazil, Hong Kong, Spain, Vietnam and Las Vegas, causing death and destruction.

Nothing to do with autumn: after the warmest September since measurements began, the weather in Switzerland is still warm as summer in October. Especially in the first two weeks of October: temperature peaks are sometimes up to 10 degrees above normal, and in many places there are summer days with more than 25 degrees. This makes October 2023 the second warmest on record – after 2022.

According to an analysis by the EU climate change agency Copernicus, 2023 was the warmest in 125,000 years. The American information portal Climate Central had previously spoken of the warmest twelve consecutive months in 125,000 years for the period November 2022 to October 2023.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Copernicus, one of the reasons for the hot year is persistently high CO₂ emissions, which reached a record high in 2022. The weather phenomenon ‘El Niño’ has also contributed to this, as it warms surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The COP28 world climate conference will take place in Dubai from late November to mid-December – with a ‘historic’, if not sufficient, result: for the first time, the world community calls for an end to fossil fuels at a UN climate conference. The exit previously requested by more than a hundred countries has not been realized.

Furthermore, the capacity of renewable energy sources is expected to triple by 2030, and the pace of energy efficiency is expected to double over this period.

What also remains: many loopholes. Scientists worldwide emphasize that the 1.5 degree target cannot be achieved in this way.

(watson.de / edit for watson.ch: lak/yam)