The year of all – bad – records

According to the Global Climate Highlights report from the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2022 was the warmest year on record in a number of European countries – France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, Luxembourg, Bosnia, Slovenia and Croatia. For Europe as a whole, it was the second warmest on record after 2020, which was 0.3°C warmer than last year.

The report also shows that Europe’s average temperature in 2022 was 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It was the eighth year in a row that the margin exceeded 1°C. Summer temperatures have been hotter than ever in recent years, with heat waves more than doubling since 1980.

2022 was also a record year for CO2. According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (*CAMS), the year’s figure of 417 parts per million is the highest in the last 2 million years.