2024 Set to Emerge Hottest Year in History, Breaks Temperature Records

*First year world exceeds 1.5c, hotter than pre-industrial period

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Scientists at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) have said that this year is “virtually certain” to eclipse 2023 as the world’s warmest since records began.
The data was released ahead of COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, which begins today (Monday), where countries will attempt to agree more funding to tackle climate change.

According to the report, from January to October, the average global temperature had been so high that 2024 was sure to be the world’s hottest year – unless the temperature anomaly in the rest of the year plunged to near-zero.
The scientists said 2024 will also be the first year in which the planet is more than 1.5C hotter than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale.
Carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil and gas have been fingered as the main cause of global warming.

Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to prevent global warming surpassing 1.5C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), to avoid its worst consequences.
The world has not breached that target – which refers to an average global temperature of 1.5C over decades – but C3S now expects the world to exceed the Paris goal around 2030.
The new data showed that October was yet another abnormally warm month worldwide, the second-hottest on record and the 15th in a 16-month period for which the global-average surface air temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

For 2024 not to beat the record-breaking temperature of 2023, the average temperature anomaly for the rest of the year “would have to drop to almost zero to not be the warmest year,” Copernicus stated.
The 1.5C threshold was established at the 2015 COP21 climate summit, when 196 parties signed the legally binding Paris Agreement. They agreed to keep limiting global warming to below 1.5C or “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

Beyond this limit, experts warn that critical tipping points will be breached, leading to devastating and potentially irreversible consequences for several vital Earth systems that sustain a hospitable planet.
“After 10 months of 2024 it is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels according to the ERA5 dataset,” said Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Samantha Burgess.

Burgess called on countries gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan, this week for the UN climate summit COP29 to “raise ambition” in light of the “new milestone in global temperature records.”

A UN report published ahead of the major summit indicated that current pledges put the world on track for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1C over the course of this century. It further warned that cuts of 42 per cent by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035 are needed to get on track for 1.5C of warming.
The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are the primary drivers of global warming as they trap heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has urged countries to halt new gas and oil field projects, arguing that this is the only way to keep the 1.5C-compatible net-zero emissions scenario alive.
Global fossil fuel consumption has more than doubled in the last 50 years, as countries around the world aim to improve their standards of living and economic output.

In 2023, atmospheric concentrations of all three of the most potent greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record highs. Because of their extremely long durability in the atmosphere, the world is now “committed to rising temperatures for many, many years to come,” said Ko Barret, Deputy Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

Rising atmospheric and ocean temperatures are directly linked to more frequent and more severe extreme weather events, including hurricanes, floods, heatwaves, and droughts as well as sea level rise and coastal erosion resulting from warming oceans, glacial melting, and loss of ice sheets.

Some of the most recent extreme weather events recorded around the world have been attributed to human-made climate change, from the powerful hurricanes Helene and Milton in the US to the deadly floods in Spain’s Valencia region and even the deadly floods in Nigeria.