Paris Climate Accord

This year is now almost certain to be the hottest year on record, data shows. It will also be the first to have an average temperature of more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels, marking a further escalation of the climate crisis.

November was Earth’s second-warmest month in 175 years of record-keeping, and the year is all but certain to be the warmest on record, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Average worldwide land and ocean surface temperatures for the month were 2.41 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 55.2-degree average in the 20th century. Only last November, which was 0.14 degrees warmer, surpassed this year.

Earth just experienced its second-warmest November on record — second only to 2023 — making it all but certain that 2024 will end as the hottest year ever measured, according to a report Monday by European climate service Copernicus.

Scores of high-profile government officials, corporate interests and protestors converage by Egypt’s Red Sea for the next two weeks, charged with quickening the progress in curbing costly and deadly global warming.

And they meet, under the banner of another United Nations Conference of Parties, this one COP27, faced with the pressing crises of food and energy shortages and a globe-impacting war in Ukraine.

As the United Nations climate conference opens in Egypt, the most critical talks will likely focus on the soaring costs of limiting — and adapting to — global warming, especially in the world's most vulnerable countries. It's a contentious conversation more than a decade in the making.

Upwards of 40,000 people have flown from around the world to attend the United Nations COP 27 climate conference that began Sunday at a plush seaside resort in Egypt.

The opening day erupted in applause for the work of self-styled “activists” before delegates agreed with each other the issue of whether rich countries should compensate poor third world countries for “climate change” should be debated as a matter of urgency.

The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh comes with a packed agenda, drawing massed attendees for two weeks of talks and climate debate.

Back in the United States, a House congressional committee has uncovered documents revealing how oil company executives’ private actions contradicted their public promises to fight climate change. One set of emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform shows how Exxon sought to undermine an oil industry pledge to uphold the Paris Climate Agreement. Other internal emails reveal Shell’s public pledge to go carbon-neutral amounted to corporate greenwashing.

As President Joe Biden restated his administration's commitment to the Paris Climate Accords, he had to admit that even after President Trump pulled the US from that agreement, emissions went down during those years.

Biden was speaking during the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, when he made the admission. He thanked corporations, labor leaders, and charitable organizations for their work is reducing the effects of climate change, saying "That leadership together with action by state, local and tribal governments is been essential in the United States."