Hottest year on record sent planet past key global warming limit of 1.5C for first time in 2024

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Hottest year on record sent planet past key global warming limit of 1.5C for first time in 2024
Author: Kate Abnett
Published: Jan, 10 2025 09:53

‘This is a rude awakening to politicians to get their act together’. The world has experienced the first full year in which global temperatures have exceeded the key target of 1.5C above pre-industrial times. The milestone was confirmed by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which said the climate crisis is pushing the planet's temperature to levels never before experienced by modern humans.

 [Burnt trees lie in the Chiquitania forest on the outskirts of Rio Blanco, Bolivia in the wake of a forest fire devastating the area]
Image Credit: The Independent [Burnt trees lie in the Chiquitania forest on the outskirts of Rio Blanco, Bolivia in the wake of a forest fire devastating the area]

"The trajectory is just incredible," C3S director Carlo Buontempo said, describing how every month in 2024 was the warmest or second-warmest for that month since records began. The planet's average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C higher than in 1850-1900, the "pre-industrial period" before humans began burning carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuels on a large scale, C3S said. Last year was the world's hottest since records began, and each of the past ten years was among the ten warmest on record.

 [Hurricane Milton hit the US hard]
Image Credit: The Independent [Hurricane Milton hit the US hard]

Britain's Met Office confirmed 2024's likely breach of 1.5C, while estimating a slightly lower average temperature of 1.53C for the year. Governments promised under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to prevent average temperatures exceeding 1.5C, to avoid more severe and costly climate disasters. The first year above 1.5C does not breach that target, which measures the longer-term average temperature. Mr Buontempo said rising greenhouse gas emissions meant the world was on track to soon also blow past the Paris goal – but that it was not too late for countries to rapidly cut emissions to avoid warming rising further to disastrous levels.

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