Today's children are the first generation born into a climate changed Earth

Small children are the most vulnerable to all climate change impacts  1. At present and   2. Throughout their lives 

With its March 2024 State of the Climate in 2023 the WMO issued a Red Alert on climate.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) showed that in 2023  "records were once again broken, and in some cases smashed, for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat. Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones caused misery and mayhem, upending every-day life for millions and inflicting many billions of dollars in economic losses"

As stated by the WMO all climate change indicators are record high, increasing as fast as ever- and several faster, as shown by our composite.

All these  indicators together, as in the composite, make it so clear governments MUST put global emissions into rapid decline immediately (as IPCC AR6)

They all have children in their lives-they cannot allow the continued extraction of fossil fuels.

GHG Emissions

In particular and all important, all global greenhouse gas emissions

that are at record high and increasing fast, with the average rate of increase

from 2002 faster than the average from 1972

(2023, EDGAR - Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research)

Atmospheric GHG Concentrations

All atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are at record high,

increasing at record rates.

The atmospheric greenhouse gases determine the global heating 

and global surface warming, and are the 1992 UN climate change convention 

climate safety indicator (actually not global warming).

This indicates that today's children are subjected to a much higher 

degree of climate change 

Ocean Heat

Most of the added greenhouse heat goes straight to the oceans (over 90%), so increasing ocean heat is a much better indicator of the climate change trend.

So this is a driver and indicator of increasing global warming and climate change

It's bad for the oceans, for one thing causing deep open ocean deoxygenation.

Then there is ocean acidification caused by CO2 emissions.

That makes GHG emissions triple damaging to ocean health

with damaging repercussions on land, that will impact our children's future.  

Composite of

global heating indicators 

All record high, rapidly increasing 

Global Warming and Extreme weather events

Finally the result of all these drivers is global surface warming, which is causing increasing disastrous extreme weather events in all countries

We all know that 2023 was a record for global warming and by a large margin, that shocked the climate scientists.

The WMO put the 2023 global temperature increase at 1.45°C,

little short of the 1.5°C danger limit. 

The 1.5°C limit has now been breached many times.

Global Warming Acceleration

Global warming has obviously been accelerating on the long term,

and is now agreed it is accelerating on the short term, even without the big 2023 record.   

State of the Climate