Editorial: After the hottest year on record, a need for climate progress in 2024

In 2015, 194 nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement, pledging to take the necessary steps to limit the increase of average global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius over pre Industrial Era levels. It aspirationally called for a more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees, though there were doubts about the international community’s ability to meet that goal.

Earlier this month, eight years since that landmark agreement, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year since scientists began keeping records in the 19th century. Average temperatures reached 1.4 degrees above pre industrial levels. If there is one hope to have for the coming year, it is that the world recognizes the peril of this moment and responds with the necessary determination and urgency to make substantial progress on the climate crisis.

We simply cannot lament another lost year in 12 months’ time. The year that concludes tonight has afforded the world a glimpse of what the future holds: more frequent and powerful storms that cause incredible devastation; longer and more persistent droughts that harm crops and livestock and fuel destructive wildfires; more prolonged and deadly heat waves; and widespread, dangerous flooding that can wipe communities off the map.

To see a storm such as Hurricane Otis in October, which strengthened from a relatively weak tropical system into a frightening Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours, should give every coastal resident pause. Improvements in storm forecasting have saved countless lives, but the experience with Otis, which killed more than 50 people when it hammered the resort city of Acapulco, shows that warming seas and higher global temperatures could well undo that progress.

That has grave implications for Hampton Roads. Yes, the region again avoided a direct strike during a busy Atlantic hurricane season. The El Nino weather pattern kept most tropical systems at sea or impeded their development, sparing area residents the sort of threats faced by states along the Gulf of Mexico.

However, as the community with the highest rate of sea level rise on the east coast, Hampton Roads cannot escape the danger posed by the climate crisis. The region’s constituent cities have, in recent years, made impressive strides to bolster the resilience of our most vulnerable areas, but the pace must quicken.

Virginia has also done its part in recent years, adopting laws that facilitate the transition away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner, renewable sources of energy. It joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a market based carbon cap and trade program that has reduced emissions and funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into flood preparedness and energy efficiency programs.

The latter may be a casualty of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s backwards climate policies, but the former thankfully remains in effect. But achieving the type of large scale progress required to avoid the worst scenarios requires international cooperation. It means nations big and small, developed and developing, each making a commitment to act and then following through.

In December, the UN Climate Change Conference reached agreement on a roadmap to “transition away from fossil fuels,” but stopped short of a directive to “phase out” oil, coal and gas. While some hailed that progress, it also showed how much more must be done if the international community hopes to achieve the ambitious goals outlined in Paris.

It would be easy, in the face of this, to lose hope or to despair. For those who have voiced concern about the climate crisis, only to have those fears mocked or dismissed, the data from 2023 shows those worries were well placed. Their alarm was correct and eminently justified. But we must continue to be optimistic that the world can pull out of this tailspin.

We have to believe that the global community can make the changes necessary to curb global warming and ensure a safe and sustainable environment for future generations. If we are all to have a wish for 2024, let that be it..