The year 2023 has been confirmed as the warmest on record, driven by human-caused climate change and boosted by the natural El Niño weather event.<br />”<br />”The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) released its 2023 Global Climate Highlights report today, backing up scientific consensus that 2023 was the hottest year on record. The report shows 2023 had a global average temperature of 14.98 degree Celsius, which is 0.17 degree Celsius higher than 2016, the previous record-breaking year.<br />”<br />”<span style="color: #222222;">Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of C3S, said that 2023 was an exceptional year with climate records tumbling like dominoes. It is also the first year with all days over 1 degree Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial period. She said, temperatures during 2023 exceeded those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years.</span><br />