2024 on track to be hottest year in history, says EU climate monitor ahead of COP29
FILE PHOTO: A fish carcass is seen on a sandbank that emerged in the middle of the Solimoes River in the Amazon Basin, which is suffering from the worst drought on record, near Manacapuru, Amazonas state, Brazil September 20, 2024. Photograph:( Reuters )
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C3S data from January to October shows global temperatures climbing so steeply that only an unlikely, drastic cooling in the last months could prevent 2024 from setting a new high
C3S data from January to October shows global temperatures climbing so steeply that only an unlikely, drastic cooling in the last months could prevent 2024 from setting a new high
The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has declared that 2024 is “virtually certain” to set a record as the hottest year globally, beating 2023's record as the world's warmest since records began.
This comes just before the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where leaders will push for significant funding boosts to combat climate change.
The hottest year on record
C3S data from January to October shows global temperatures climbing so steeply that only an unlikely, drastic cooling in the last months could prevent 2024 from setting a new high.
Talking to Reuters, C3S Director Carlo Buontempo said, “The fundamental, underpinning cause of this year's record is climate change.”
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“The climate is warming, generally,” Buontempo noted, “It's warming in all continents, in all ocean basins. So we are bound to see those records being broken”.
For the first time, Earth in 2024 will cross the 1.5 °C warming threshold compared to the 1850-1990 pre-industrial levels. This milestone—once considered a distant risk—is now effectively here, warn scientists.
"It's basically around the corner now," Buontempo said.
Climate scientist Sonia Seneviratne from ETH Zurich said she was not surprised by the fact that we were close to reaching the milestone. Echoing the urgency of COP29, she warned that the world's limited actions on carbon emissions are endangering the Paris Agreement’s targets, originally set to prevent average warming from exceeding 1.5 °C by 2030.
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“The limits that were set in the Paris Agreement are starting to crumble given the too-slow pace of climate action across the world,” Seneviratne said.
The temperature spikes this year have contributed to intense and devastating events worldwide. October alone saw catastrophic flash floods in Spain, raging wildfires in Peru, and severe flooding in Bangladesh that destroyed over a million tons of rice, sending food prices soaring. In the US, Hurricane Milton was similarly exacerbated by human-driven climate change.
(With inputs from agencies)
