A volunteer pours water for a man to cool down on a hot day in Karachi, Pakistan. 2024 will be the first year to be 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times | Photo credit: AP
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday (November 7, 2024) that this year will “almost certainly” exceed 2023 and become the hottest year on record globally. The data was released ahead of next week’s UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where countries will try to agree on a significant increase in funding to combat climate change. Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has lowered expectations for the talks.
C3S said global average temperatures were so high from January to October that 2024 is certain to be the hottest year globally – unless temperatures anomalies plummet to near zero for the rest of the year.
“The root cause of this year’s record is climate change,” C3S director Carlo Buontempo told Reuters.
“Overall, the climate is warming. All continents, all ocean basins are warming. So we’re definitely going to see these records being broken,” he said.
Scientists say 2024 will also be the first year that the Earth’s temperature is more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than during the pre-industrial period from 1850 to 1900, when humans began burning fossil fuels on a large scale.
Also read: COP29 focuses on methane diplomacy
Carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas are a major cause of global warming.
Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist at public research university ETH Zurich, said she was not surprised by the milestone and urged governments to agree to stronger action at COP29, Wean its economy from dependence on carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuels.
“Given the slow pace of global climate action, the limits set in the Paris Agreement are starting to break down,” Ms. Seneviratna said.
Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to work to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Celsius) to avoid the worst consequences.
The world is not yet over the target – global average temperatures have risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius in decades – but C3S now expects the world to exceed the Paris target by around 2030.
“It’s basically within reach now,” Mr. Buentambo said.
Every rise in temperature increases extreme weather. In October, catastrophic flash floods in Spain killed hundreds of people, record wildfires in Peru, and floods in Bangladesh destroyed more than 1 million tons of rice, causing food prices to soar. In the United States, human-caused climate change also exacerbated Hurricane Milton.
C3S records go back to 1940 and are cross-checked with global temperature records going back to 1850.
Published – November 7, 2024 09:32 AM (IST)
