The past year has been characterized by very visible climate impacts — record-breaking heat, floods, and other natural disasters. An ongoing megadrought led to increasingly pressing concerns over the future of water security in the American West. Hurricanes pummeled Puerto Rico, Florida, and much of the Eastern seaboard. And cities and towns in between experienced searing heat, torrential floods, and epic snowfall. Despite the obvious signs of planetary peril, the industrialized world continues to fall short of the emissions goals outlined in the Paris Agreement.
But through it all, some hard-earned victories have given climate advocates reasons to be hopeful. In August, the United States passed its most meaningful piece of climate legislation ever with the Inflation Reduction Act, a win that caught many by surprise after months of gridlock. The law will make roughly $369 billion available for cutting emissions and protecting frontline communities. Last month, negotiators at COP27 worked through challenging conditions to forge a historic agreement to establish a fund for loss and damage — a critical step toward global climate justice. And on smaller stages everywhere, businesses, organizations, and individuals are advancing their own solutions, from increasingly widespread technologies like heat pumps to nature-based initiatives like wetland restoration.
We took a look back at some of the biggest climate stories from the past year and asked 23 experts to forecast what 2023 holds in a few key areas: water, ecosystems, politics and policy, mitigation and adaptation, technology, and business. Their predictions provide a glimpse of what progress could look like in the months ahead, and a rubric for measuring success. (Comments have been edited for length and clarity.)
A critical juncture for water security
Almost 47 percent of the U.S. including Puerto Rico remain parched by the worst drought in 1,200 years, a crisis impacting 196 million people. It is particularly acute in the seven western states that rely on the Colorado River for much of their water. The region’s continued growth and the drier, hotter conditions of a warming world have so imperiled the river that lakes Mead and Powell — two of the nation’s largest reservoirs — reached record lows in 2022. Federal officials have told those states to reduce water usage by as much as 4 million acre-feet per year, or face mandatory cutbacks. The steps they take in 2023 could radically shape the lives of more than 40 million people throughout the west, impact 5 million acres of agricultural land, and influence water policy nationwide.
Western states must find common ground managing the Colorado River
We’ve been working on the Colorado River system for a long time, and so far, the measures we’ve taken haven’t been successful. I think a lot of people feel we need to stop living on the edge. We’re finally facing up to the prospect of no hydropower production, or dead pool, and that could be catastrophic.
In 2023, we [must] figure out a way to save at least 2 million acre-feet of water in the system. That has to be a multiyear commitment to allow the reservoirs to recover. If that doesn’t happen, we could be in a situation where we’re really staring in the face of dead pool in 2024. The only thing we have control over in this situation is how much water we take out of the system. We can’t control how much water goes in. We need to make this commitment to leave a lot of water [in the basin] over multiple years to enable it to recover.
I’m hopeful that the region will come to an agreement. Honest reckoning with where we are is motivating. It’s one of the most challenging water-policy scenarios that the Western U.S. has ever faced — arguably, the biggest challenge that the U.S. has ever faced.