Coming in Hot: UN Chief Says 2023 Warmest Year ‘Recorded In Human History’

The year 2023 has seen severe fires, floods, and heat waves around the world.

If this summer felt particularly hot to you, you aren’t just imagining things.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said 2023 will be the hottest year on record during the opening of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai Thursday.

The claim is surprising because, naturally, the data isn’t all in yet. The world still has another month to go before there will be a full year’s worth of statistics. Actually, the World Meteorological Organization report cited by the UN head didn’t include full data for November either.

Guterres nevertheless felt confident making the claim, as the WMO report concluded 2023 has been so hot that it’s unlikely the last two months would alter the prediction.

“We are living through climate collapse in real time,” Guterres claimed before delegates in Dubai. “Record global heating should send shivers down the spines of world leaders. And it should trigger them to act.”

Previously this month the WMO said the El Niño weather pattern should be expected to last until April, raising the prospect that 2024 will be another record-setting year.

The WMO preliminary report shows that 2023 was on average 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. That’s just shy of the 1.5 degree rise world leaders have set as a goal.

The Paris Climate Agreement set a two degree Celsius rise versus pre-industrial numbers as the safe upper limit. This global temperature average was surpassed briefly earlier in November.