Experts warn that 2023 will be remembered as the year the world’s inability to combat climate change became undeniable.

2023 is set to be remembered as a pivotal year in the fight against climate change, with scientists emphasizing that it marked a significant moment when humanity’s failure to address the climate crisis became undeniable. As temperatures reached unprecedented levels, experts warned that the planet’s future looked increasingly bleak.

James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and a leading climate expert, told The Guardian that this year would be seen as a turning point in the battle against climate change. “When our children and grandchildren look back on human-made climate change, this year and the next will be seen as the moment when the futility of governments’ efforts to tackle climate change was finally exposed,” he said. He added that, rather than slowing down, global warming actually accelerated during 2023, amplifying concerns about the trajectory of the planet’s climate.

The year saw temperatures soar, with July likely being the hottest month in the past 120,000 years. Hansen, who was one of the first prominent scientists to raise the alarm about global warming in the 1980s, warned that the world is moving into a “new climate frontier” — one where temperatures are rising beyond anything seen in the past million years.

As the global climate continues to deteriorate, Hansen noted that the best hope for tackling the crisis lies in a generational shift in leadership. “The bright side of this clear dichotomy is that young people may realize they must take charge of their future. The turbulent state of today’s politics may provide opportunity,” he said, encouraging younger generations to lead the way in mitigating the effects of climate change.

Hansen’s comments reflect the growing frustration among climate experts at the wide gap between scientific warnings and political action. Despite decades of evidence that fossil fuel consumption is driving the climate crisis, international leaders have been slow to act. At the United Nations’ COP28 summit in Dubai, world leaders issued a vague call for a “transition away” from fossil fuels, even as data showed that the world is already on a dangerous path towards higher temperatures.

Scientists are still compiling data from this exceptionally hot year, but the Japanese meteorological agency recently confirmed that 2023 was 0.53°C above the global average temperatures between 1991 and 2020, solidifying the claim that this year is likely to be recorded as the hottest in history.