While there is some disagreement as to whether we have crossed the 1.5°C threshhold set at COP 21 in Paris, scientists agree that we are on the brink and 2024 was the hottest year on record.
At COP 29 last November, Jim Skea, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explained, “Children born today will not know a world without climate change. The IPCC has shown that we, and furthermore they, will live in a world marked by more intense storms, exceptional heatwaves, devastating floods and droughts, a world where food chains are disrupted, and where diseases reach new countries.”
On Friday, January 10, Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, reported, “We are now living in a very different climate from that, which our parents and our grandparents experienced.”
“Giving some more details for 2024, the year was 1.6°C above the pre-industrial level. 2024 was the warmest year on record, and the last 10 years have been the 10 warmest years on record.”
“The primary reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and this accumulation has occurred primarily due to fossil fuels as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Temperatures continue to increase including in the ocean. Sea levels continue to rise and glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt.”
“According to the latest IPCC six assessment report published in 2021, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are the highest that they have been for the last, at least 800,000 years for methane and for over 2 million years for carbon dioxide.”
The most positive reports of last year’s average global temperature rise come from NASA and NOAA, in the United States, who claim it was slightly below 1.5°C.
However the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that 2024 was warmest year on record and stated the average global temperature was 1.55°C.
This is the second year in a row that Berkeley Earth reported that the global temperature rise exceeding 1.5°C. They were 1.54°C in 2023 and 1.62°C in 2024. As a result of our entering a weak La Niña phase, Berkeley Earth suggests 2025 could be cooler than 2024, but still ‘roughly the 3rd warmest year in the instrumental record.’
Jim Skea warned, “Today, our chances of limiting warming to 1.5 °C are hanging on a very slender thread. The recent UNEP Gap Report concluded that global emissions would need to fall by 7.5% per year through to 2035 to return us to a 1.5 °C pathway. If we delay more ambitious action to 2030, this becomes an unprecedented 15%. Even limiting warming to 2°C is at risk.”
“This does not have to be the case. As the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report demonstrated, we have the know-how, tools and financial resources to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. A world where transport is no longer polluting, our cities are green, and we have transitioned away from fossil fuels. We have shown that carbon pricing, regulations and other interventions have already resulted in gigatonnes of avoided emissions. More can be achieved if policies and measures are scaled up and deployed more widely.”
Links of Interest:
- Global Average Temperatures Of Select Nations: A Report Card – Cortes Currents
- European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
- Copernicus Climate Change Service
- Berkeley Earth
- World Meteorological Organization
- NASA Climate Change
- NOAA Climate
- IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
Top image credit: Crows cooling off under a sprinkler – Photo by daBinsi via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
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