III. Climate change

Chapter:

1. Introduction: International stability and human security in 2019

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2020

Author(s):

Dan Smith

The pressure of climate change continues to build. The year 2019 was the second hottest on record and concluded a decade ‘of exceptional global heat and high-impact weather’ according to the World Meteorological Organization.⁶² Each decade since the 1980s has been warmer than the previous one. Like the 2010s as a whole, parts of the world experienced retreating ice, record sea levels, increasing ocean heat and acidification, and extreme weather in 2019. Authoritative international reports continued to explore the impact of global temperature increase and associated interlinkages. A definitive intergovernmental report on the state of nature and ecosystems, the first such since 2005, identified a rate of change in nature during the last half century that is without precedent. Changes in the way that sea and land are used have been identified as the driver of change with the greatest impact; climate change was regarded as the third most important driver.⁶³