If people do not considerably cut back on environmentally hazardous behaviors, experts predict that increasingly severe natural catastrophes will occur.
At least 60% of Americans were subject to extreme weather alerts this week due to the nation's record-low temperatures and perilous winter storms.
Around the world, severe heatwaves burnt entire nations, while hurricanes and cyclones tore through areas of Asia and the Americas.
This year, terrible floods buried a third of Pakistan while a drought catastrophe in East Africa put millions of people at risk of hunger.
Extreme weather in many regions of the world in 2022 was a definite indicator of a fast-warming planet and a rapidly shrinking opportunity for action, they said.
Experts predict that more extreme weather events will occur in 2023, even as countries scramble to fight the climate issue.
Climate change and severe weather affect more than only disaster-prone countries, according to Professor Rachel Bezner Kerr of Cornell University's department of global development.
The impact on food systems, including agriculture, oceans, and fisheries, is already visible, and further deterioration will have a greater impact on food resources for communities worldwide, she said.
"If we don't take significant action to really transform our food systems to not rely on fossil fuels, and to use more ecological processes for growing food, we can anticipate even more severe impacts, including hitting the pocketbook in terms of the price of food in the future," she added.
Some experts have cautioned that the world has advanced too far to stop global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which was the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in an effort to lessen the severe effects of climate change.
However, this year saw some progress in terms of taking climate-friendly measures.
The U.S. approved a landmark climate bill, allocating its largest investment to date-nearly $370 billion-to increase the development of renewable energy with the goal of reducing emissions.
Environmentalists are hopeful that the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters will speed up action after the US and China resumed climate talks.
A groundbreaking agreement on a "loss and damage" fund was agreed at COP27 in Egypt, paving the way for vulnerable nations to cope with terrible climate impacts.
Food security, as well as the finance and implementation of the loss and damage fund, will be important issues to watch at COP28 next year in oil-rich Dubai. Making carbon trading arrangements to avoid duplicate counting and improper dealings in the system is also high on the priority list.
Experts believe that nations must accelerate their efforts to address climate change as the task becomes more difficult each year.
