The Earth is experiencing its hottest year on record, a stark reminder of the accelerating pace of climate change. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has declared that 2024 is “virtually certain” to surpass 2023 as the warmest year since records began, with global temperatures reaching unprecedented levels. This announcement comes ahead of the upcoming UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where nations are expected to grapple with the urgent need for increased climate funding.
The C3S data reveals that from January to October, the average global temperature was so high that 2024 is practically guaranteed to be the hottest year on record unless a significant and unlikely temperature plunge occurs during the remaining months. “The fundamental, underpinning cause of this year’s record is climate change,” emphasizes C3S Director Carlo Buontempo. “The climate is warming, generally. It’s warming in all continents, in all ocean basins. So we are bound to see those records being broken.”
This year also marks a crucial milestone in the ongoing climate crisis. 2024 will be the first year in which the planet’s average temperature exceeds 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900), a threshold outlined in the landmark Paris Agreement. This agreement, signed in 2015, aimed to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5°C to avoid the most severe consequences of climate change. The world has not yet breached this target in terms of a decade-long average, but the C3S predicts that the 1.5°C threshold will be crossed around 2030. “It’s basically around the corner now,” warns Buontempo.
The consequences of this ongoing temperature increase are already being felt across the globe. Extreme weather events are intensifying, resulting in devastating impacts. In October alone, catastrophic flash floods claimed hundreds of lives in Spain, record wildfires ravaged Peru, and flooding in Bangladesh destroyed over a million tons of rice, leading to soaring food prices. Even in the United States, Hurricane Milton was exacerbated by human-caused climate change.
The C3S has been tracking global temperatures since 1940, with data cross-checked against records dating back to 1850. The scientific community, including climate scientist Sonia Seneviratne from ETH Zurich, is unsurprised by this latest milestone. Seneviratne urges governments attending COP29 to commit to stronger action to transition their economies away from fossil fuels, the primary source of CO2 emissions driving global warming. “The limits that were set in the Paris agreement are starting to crumble given the too-slow pace of climate action across the world,” she warns.
The relentless rise in global temperatures underscores the urgency of tackling climate change. The world is on a path toward a future marked by increasingly severe and frequent extreme weather events. The decisions made at COP29 will determine the course of action taken to mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change and safeguard the future of our planet.
