Climate Watch: Ozone layer on track to recovery within four decades, says UN

Despite directly impacting our communities, health and livelihood, climate-related reports usually take a back seat to dominant news beats like politics and business. Climate Watch aims to ensure you never miss important stories on climate change and actions being taken towards limiting its impact.

Here is a round-up of last week’s climate stories:

• The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said the ozone layer is on track to full recovery within the next four decades. The conclusion was made by a UN-backed panel of experts during a presentation at the American Meteorological Society’s 103rd annual meeting on January 9.  UNEP added that the meaningful progress can be attributed to the global phase-out of ozone-depleting chemicals made possible by the Montreal Protocol. Find out more here.

• Meanwhile, a research by an international team of scientists from 16 institutes worldwide, has found that the world’s oceans were the warmest on record in 2022. The study, which looked at temperatures from the ocean surface to 2,000 metres deep, examined data from the 1950s and found that ocean warming is getting increasingly fast, and that more than 90 percent of the excess heat accumulated in the climate system is deposited in the world’s oceans. According to the study, this is made worse by human activities of pumping heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere. Find out more here.

• In the face of the financial challenges faced by the global south in tackling climate change, António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general, has called for a reform of the global financial system to support developing countries. He said loss and damage from the impact of climate change disproportionately affects least responsible countries. He added that the UN is actively pursuing a reform of international banking systems to provide finance for developing countries. Read more here.

• The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced Sultan Al Jaber, head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), as the president of COP28 climate change conference. Al Jaber, who is also UAE’s climate envoy and minister of industry and technology, will be saddled with the responsibility of setting COP28 agenda, drive ambition internationally, lead the formal negotiations, and have oversight of the overall COP package and vision. The conference is billed to hold in UAE from November 30 to December 12, 2023. However, the announcement of Al-Jaber was followed by mixed reactions — including criticism — and criticism as campaigners around the world have insisted that the head of an oil company as the president of any COP is a form of “denial” about climate change.