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According to new research, destruction of tropical forests is far outstripping the current rate of regrowth. But forests worldwide are shrinking at an alarming rate. Planting more trees and protecting carbon-absorbing ecosystems is one of the most effective ways of scaling up carbon capture. 'It's an absolute, worst-case scenario that we need to do this, because other things have failed,' says Siegert, adding that there is not one 'silver bullet' to tackling climate change. (Read more about the plans to pull CO2 from the air). Technologies to capture and store CO2 are still emerging, very expensive and as yet unproven. 'That puts us in a very dangerous situation, because we have very few scaleable strategies for doing this,' says Waring. Last year the IPCC warned that removing CO2 from the atmosphere is essential because even big emissions' cuts won't be enough to limit global warming. This is a major issue because we are getting dangerously close to a future where we will not be able to keep warming below 1.5C,' says Waring. 'Atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise. The last time CO2 levels exceeded 400ppm was around four million years ago, during the Pliocene era, when global temperatures were 2-4C (3.6-7.2F) warmer and sea levels were 10-25m (33-82ft) higher than today. 'It's going up about two points every year, so in 100 years we'd end up at 600ppm and that would be just crazy,' he says. In the past 50 years, we have added 100ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere, according to Martin Siegert, co-director of the Grantham Institute. The global average last year was 417.2ppm. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere this year is forecast to be 419.2 parts per million (ppm), according to the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii.

Here are five key indicators to assess its health in 2023.

Scientists are now tracking the state of the climate more than ever. In the last few years, the world has experienced devastating extreme weather caused by climate change, record temperatures and rapid ice melt.

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This latest report is likely to 'emphasise that time is running out for the easier solutions and the more gradual transitions to a carbon free economy', says Bonnie Waring, senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute for climate change and the environment at Imperial College London. Scientists said that drastic emissions reductions were needed this decade to keep global warming below 1.5C and protect the world's most vulnerable ecosystems and communities. In its last report in 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways. This week the UN's climate science body is releasing a major report on the climate changes happening worldwide due to human activity.