‘Climate impacts are here’: Earth Day 2023 marked by demonstrations worldwide 

Average global temperatures could hit all-time highs in 2023 or 2024, climate scientists have warned. Governments have fallen far short of pledges in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Climate change campaigners gathered outside Britain’s parliament building ahead of Earth Day to urge action on global warming, while volunteers worldwide geared up to plant trees and clear trash to mark the 54th annual celebration of the environment.

Earth Day this year, officially on Saturday, follows weeks of extreme weather with temperatures soaring to record highs in Thailand and a punishing heatwave in India, where at least 13 people died of heatstroke at a ceremony last weekend.

Average global temperatures could hit all-time highs in 2023 or 2024, climate scientists have warned.

Pope Francis, who has championed green causes since his election in 2013, urged people to look after the environment.

“The Book of Genesis tells us that the Lord entrusted human beings with the responsibility of being stewards of creation (Gen 2:15). Care for the Earth, then, is a moral obligation for all men and women as children of God #EarthDay,” he tweeted on Saturday.

“Climate impacts are here,” Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said on Friday as climate change activists walked down the street outside parliament in London, some dressed in green costumes and green paint.

Hamid said when she now visits her hometown of Delhi, it feels like “putting your head in the oven” and that London’s 2022 heatwave was like “a dystopian film.”

“We can’t afford that anymore.”