10th January 2025 – (Brussels) Scientists reported on Friday, that 2024 has become the first full year in which global temperatures surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This significant milestone was confirmed by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), indicating that climate change is pushing the planet to unprecedented temperature extremes.
C3S director Carlo Buontempo described the situation as “incredible,” noting that every month in 2024 ranked as the warmest or second-warmest for that month since records began. The average global temperature for the year was recorded at 1.6 degrees Celsius higher than the figures from 1850-1900, the period before the widespread burning of fossil fuels.
The year 2024 has been confirmed as the hottest on record, with each of the past decade’s years also among the top ten warmest ever documented. The U.K.’s Met Office corroborated the findings, estimating a slightly lower average temperature of 1.53 degrees Celsius for the year. US scientists are expected to disclose their 2024 climate data later today.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, governments pledged to prevent the average global temperature from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius to mitigate severe climate-related disasters. However, the breach of this threshold does not violate that target, which is based on long-term averages.
Buontempo warned that rising greenhouse gas emissions suggest the world is on course to exceed the Paris goal unless urgent action is taken to curtail emissions. “It’s not a done deal. We have the power to change the trajectory from now on,” he asserted.
The repercussions of climate change are evident across the globe, impacting both affluent and impoverished nations alike. Recent wildfires in California have resulted in at least five fatalities and the destruction of numerous homes. Bolivia and Venezuela faced devastating fires, while torrential floods affected regions in Nepal, Sudan, and Spain, and heatwaves in Mexico and Saudi Arabia caused thousands of deaths.
The heightened temperatures have led to more severe storms and torrential rain, as a warmer atmosphere can retain more moisture, resulting in intense precipitation. In 2024, the concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere reached a record high.
Despite the escalating costs associated with these disasters, the political commitment to invest in emission reduction has diminished in some nations. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has labelled climate change a hoax, disregarding the global scientific consensus that human activity is the primary cause of this crisis.
In 2024, the U.S. experienced 24 climate-related disasters, each causing damages exceeding $1 billion, including Hurricanes Milton and Helene, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Chukwumerije Okereke, a professor of global climate governance at the University of Bristol, remarked that reaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius milestone should serve as a wake-up call for political leaders. “Despite all the warnings that scientists have given, nations continue to fail to live up to their responsibilities,” he stated.
C3S reported that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reached a new high of 422 parts per million in 2024. Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, anticipates that 2025 will also rank among the hottest years recorded, but likely not surpass 2024. He noted that while human-caused emissions are the primary driver of climate warming, the early months of 2024 were further influenced by the El Niño weather pattern, which is now shifting towards its cooler counterpart, La Niña.
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