2023 Climate Power Rankings: The Year Heat Came to Stay - Bloomberg
2023 Climate Power Rankings: The Year Heat Came to Stay - Bloomberg
2023 Climate Power Rankings: The Year Heat Came to Stay
It’s harder than ever to deny the reality of global warming and the need to make sure it doesn’t get too much worse.
Wildfire smoke made people sick from hundreds of miles away.Photographer: Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu/Getty Images
For most of the centuries humans have despoiled Earth’s climate, the consequences have felt more like a “tomorrow” problem than a “now” problem. That delusion lost much of its power in 2023. Instead of passing the nightmares we’ve created on to children and foreigners, we were increasingly dealing with them ourselves.
Deadly heat waves gripped the world from Beijing to Phoenix. Corals cooked to death right on their reefs. Seeming climate havens caught fire or flooded. Wildfire smoke made people sick from hundreds of miles away.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate legislation
The federal government and states are in the process of implementing two laws — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act — an investment of more than a trillion dollars to address climate change.