Due to a strong El Niño event, sea surface temperatures reached a record high in 2023, with an annual average about 0.23°C higher than in 2022.The Nature editorial cites an international collaborative study that shows the ocean is warming at a record rate every year since 2019, driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which have increased every year since 2019.

With several organizations announcing that 2023 was the hottest year on record, Nature Climate Change magazine looks back on the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Dubai late last year, and argues that we should not lose hope in progress against climate change.

Natural capital, which represents natural resources that provide benefits to people now and in the future, such as clean air and water, healthy forests and diverse ecosystems, is being affected by climate change, with substantial losses of ecosystem services worldwide by 2100. Negative impacts are regressive and may weigh more heavily on vulnerable countries. Today we present the main points of a recent research paper on regional and national declines in natural capital and their disproportionate impacts.

On January 10, the World Economic Forum released its Global Risks Report 2024, looking back on the turbulent year 2023 and forward to a world of rapidly increasing uncertainty.

On January 9, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union's weather information agency, officially announced that the global average temperature in 2023 will reach a historic high, exceeding levels recorded since 1850 by 1.48°C. This significant increase brings the world dangerously close to the Paris Agreement's target of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Late last year, World Weather Attribution, which analyzes the causal relationship between extreme events and climate change, concluded that climate change has intensified extreme weather events in 2023 and predicted more record-breaking events in 2024.

Thank you for visiting the Pick Up section in 2023. As we look back on the year 2023, we will cover the news of the scientific journal's breakthrough obesity drug, the growing poverty and food crisis in a world of rising inequality, the global health crisis caused by the state of our food system, and the Food System Transformation Declaration endorsed at COP28.

In April 2022, JIRCAS initiated the Green Asia project, with a primary focus on showcasing and advocating for the adoption of technologies that enhance both productivity and sustainability in the Asia-Monsoon region. and has been actively involved in various initiatives aimed at catalyzing the development of the food system in the region. In particular, several international conferences on agriculture and food systems were held from October to December this year. JIRCAS took advantage of these opportunities to present the overarching goals and specific undertakings of the Green Asia Project, with the aim of disseminating key information to our collaborators in the Asia-Monsoon region and international organizations. and fostering the expansion of our international network.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February, the Black Sea Grains Initiative, which helped avert a global food crisis, expired in mid-July 2023. Nevertheless, international food price indices in 2023 are trending relatively lower than in 2022, when they reached an all-time high. On the other hand, Yemeni armed groups are reportedly continuing to attack ships in the Red Sea, which is currently a major maritime transport route, and the possibility of indirect or direct impacts on the food supply chain in the future must be closely monitored.