UNITED NATIONS - Floods, droughts and record low ice levels – from the top of the world’s mountains to the depths of the ocean, the climate crisis took a heavy toll as it continued to intensify in 2022, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a Geneva-based UN agency, said on Friday
WMO’s latest State of the Global Climate report shows that the last eight years were the eight warmest on record and that sea level rise and ocean warming hit new highs. Record levels of greenhouse gases caused “planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere”.
Extensive flooding in Pakistan caused by severe rainfall in July and August last year killed over 1,700 people, while some 33 million were affected, the report said. WMO highlights that total damage and economic losses were assessed at $30 billion and that by October 2022, around 8 million people had been internally displaced by the floods.
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The report came a day after an unprecedentedly heavy hailstorm struck Rawalpindi that forced the abandonment of the 4th T20 match between Pakistan and New Zealand.
Released to coincide with this year’s Mother Earth Day, the WMO report echoes UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for “deeper, faster emissions cuts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius”, as well as “massively scaled-up investments in adaptation and resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable countries and communities who have done the least to cause the crisis”.
WMO Secretary-General, Prof. Petteri Taalas, said that amid rising greenhouse gas emissions and a changing climate, “populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events”.