Copernicus: The climate assessment for 2023
Having collected and processed all the data, the European Union's responsible body, Copernicus, has published its climate assessment of what turned out to be a historic year.
Confirming initial estimates, 2023 is the warmest year in recorded history (1850-present). The global average temperature was 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900) and 0.17°C above the second warmest in 2016. Every month from June to December 2023 was warmer than the corresponding months in all previous years.
The highest levels of positive temperature deviations in land areas were observed in the second half of the year in Europe, North America, North Africa and West Asia.
The global average sea surface temperature remained at record levels from April to December, alongside the prevalence of El Niño in the Pacific Ocean.
A multitude of extreme weather events (floods, heat waves, fires and droughts) have affected societies and ecosystems, such as the fires in Canada this summer, Storm Daniel in September in Greece and Libya and Hurricane Otis in October in Mexico.
Antarctic sea ice coverage in 2023 was the smallest since 1978 to date for 8 of the 12 months of the year, while for the Arctic the values were particularly low, but not at record levels.
For Europe, 2023 was the second warmest year on record, after 2020. Winter (December 2022 - February 2023) and autumn were the second warmest seasons on record, while summer was the fifth warmest.
Early satellite analyses show that carbon dioxide and methane concentrations continued their upward trend in 2023, reaching levels of 419 ppm and 1902 ppb, respectively. Taking into account paleoclimatic estimates, these values represent records of at least 2 million and 800,000 years, respectively.
For more information: https://climate.copernicus.eu/global-climate-highlights-2023
Publication of interim results of the studies on the vulnerability and impacts of climate change in Greece
The updated study presented by the Bank of Greece paints a bleak picture of the future consequences of climate change in Greece. Projections indicate a staggering 40% risk of desertification by the century's end, particularly in the eastern and southern regions. Additionally, there's a significant uptick in the number of heatwave days anticipated, along with a drastic reduction in rainfall, which could result in a parched climate.
The presentation covered new climate models forecasting impacts up to 2100, highlighting the potential repercussions on vital sectors like agriculture and transportation. Moreover, it included the initial assessment of Greece's vulnerability to climate change.
Establishment of a shipping carbonisation centre in Athens
Industry executives describe the forthcoming establishment of a maritime emissions reduction centre in Athens by the British classification society Lloyd's Register and 5 of the largest shipping companies as a significant move towards the decarbonisation of shipping, with the aim of achieving the environmental targets set by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for 2030 and 2050. It is noted that similar shipping decarbonisation centres have been established in Singapore and Shanghai.
The Maritime Decarbonisation Hub in Athens will aim to remove the barriers that arise from technical difficulties, discourage investments and constrain the pursuit and delivery of solutions that will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the existing global fleet.
At E-ON INTEGRATION we follow the latest developments on environmental and climate change issues and our goal is to accurately quantify all such issues i.e. risks, opportunities and metrics, arising from climate change or ESG in general. As part of our work we assess the economic impact of these risks/opportunities as well as the resilience of the business model and strategy of the stakeholder based on climate scenarios. Our whole methodology is fully based on "RiskClima", an IT tool, which uses data from the organization and combines them with data from external databases.
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