2023: Defining moments for the climate and environment

Temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions hit record high

Scientists confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record. Heat trapping greenhouse gas emissions, released as humans burn fossil fuels for energy, were also higher than ever.

"We're transitioning from La Nina to El Nino, so we'd expect global temperatures to rise a little bit, but the rates at which they rose took a lot of people by surprise," John Kennedy, an independent climate consultant, told DW in November.

The World Meteorological Organization reported in July that the El Nino weather pattern, which often brings hotter and drier weather to different parts of the world, had returned. Yearly temperatures are subject to natural variation, but the past decade has already seen a global average of about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. In 2023, it was 1.4 degrees higher.

"Greenhouse gas levels are record high. Global temperatures are record high. Sea level rise is record high. Antarctic sea ice is record low. It's a deafening cacophony of broken records," said Petteri Taalas, the secretary-general of the UN's World Meteorological Organization.

Floods, fires and drought

Those record temperatures were hard to ignore — and not only because of the intense heat waves everywhere from Europe to Asia to the Americas. Extreme weather events tied to climate change battered many countries and regions too.

Over more than five weeks in February and March, Tropical Cyclone Freddy crossed the Indian Ocean as the longest-lived tropical cyclone on record. It made landfall three times, causing intense rainfall, flooding and landslides in Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi.

In September, Storm Daniel resulted in severe flooding in Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey before crossing the Mediterranean and making its way to Libya. There, major floods — made 50 times more likely due to human-induced climate change, according to climate scientists — destroyed the port city of Derna, killing at least 5,000 people and displacing tens of thousands.

Wildfires were rampant. Canada saw its worst fire season on record, with blazes wiping out more than 18.5 million hectares across the country, an area larger than Syria. A regular wildfire season in Canada sees an average of 2.5 million hectares burned. Fire also devastated Hawaii, parts of Chile and many forested areas in Southern Europe and on the Canary Islands.

Many of these fires and floods were fueled by severe, long-running droughts, including in Central and South America, Europe and East Africa. Tinder-dry forests are more susceptible to burning out of control, and long droughts dry out the soil and make it harder to absorb sudden downpours.

Germany says goodbye to nuclear

In April, Germany shut down its last three nuclear power plants, finally fulfilling a pledge made by former Chancellor Angela Merkel after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Environmental campaigners hailed the development, though the problem of nuclear waste continues to linger.

But some, like KernD, a German nuclear advocacy group, criticized the move to end low-carbon nuclear power, pointing out in a DW interview the "sharp increase in coal-fired power generation" due to the energy crisis.

However, since that statement in April, the share of coal-fired power generation in the third quarter of 2023 has almost halved compared to the previous year, according to Germany's Federal Statistical Office.

At the COP28 climate conference in December, more than 120 countries pledged to triple the world's installed renewable energy capacity by 2030. But 20 states, among them France, the United States and Japan, also announced plans to ramp up nuclear energy production by 2050 to reach their climate goals.

COP28: World finally agrees to a 'transition away' from fossil fuels 

The annual UN climate conference was hosted by the major petrostate United Arab Emirates and presided over by Sultan al-Jaber, head of the country's state-run oil giant. Both controversial choices for many given their positions.

The talks began on a positive note, with the launch of a loss and damage fund to compensate countries hit by climate disasters. Often, poorer countries have done the least to contribute to climate change but are hit hardest by it.

By the end of COP28, the fund's coffers had swelled to $700 million (€633 million), though that was still far from what's required. According to estimates by climate experts, the fund will need between $150-400 billion annually by 2030.

After days of fraught overtime negotiations, global leaders finally agreed to "transition away" from fossil fuels — the first time a COP treaty had enshrined such language.  

UN climate chief Simon Stiell said the deal, signed by 200 countries, signaled the "beginning of the end" for fossil fuels, which are the main cause of the climate crisis.

But the text didn't call for a total phaseout of oil, gas and coal by a set date. Stiell warned "loopholes leave us vulnerable to fossil fuel vested interests, which could crash our ability to protect people everywhere against rising climate impacts." 

EU backs nature restoration, renews glyphosate use

The EU agreed on a landmark biodiversity law that will require member states to restore at least 20% of their degraded land and sea habitats by 2030.

It would also enforce a deadline to restore all damaged ecosystems by 2050, which the EU says will help it reach climate neutrality and create resilience to climate change. Some 80% of habitats across the continent are in poor condition.

Environmental campaigners were disappointed that the original proposal, which had met fierce opposition, was watered down with many exemptions for member states.

Sabien Leemans of environment group WWF said it was "a far cry from what science tells us is necessary to tackle the climate and biodiversity emergencies."

The law is expected to come into effect in early 2024 after EU parliamentary adoption.

The bloc also approved a series of broad measures to fight microplastics pollution and an anti-deforestation law covering imported products like leather, palm oil and wood.

But it ended up extending the use of controversial weed killer glyphosate by 10 years. And air pollution continues to be a serious problem across Europe, as a DW and European Data Journalism Network analysis showed in September.

Amazon deforestation at 5-year low

This year marked a turning point for Brazil, with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva back in office promising to cut back  Amazon deforestation. Logging and clearing had soared under former president and climate change skeptic Jair Bolsonaro.

In Lula's first year in office, deforestation dropped to its lowest since 2018, shortly before Bolsonaro took power.

But conservationists continue to urge stricter controls for the agriculture and beef industry in the rainforest region, to protect one of the world's biggest defenses against climate change.

"The expansion of grazing land is continuously progressing and remains the main cause of deforestation in the Amazon," Cristiane Mazzetti of Greenpeace Brazil told DW in April.

Other DW environment highlights of 2023 included:

• Climate change denial still thriving online. But why?
• 15-minute cities: What are they and how do they work?
• Climate: What is the global stocktake?
• Montana youth climate victory: Bad news for oil and coal?

Edited by: Jennifer Colllins