GENEVA: Average temperatures exceeded a critical threshold for the first time in two years, Europe’s climate monitor said on Friday, as the United Nations called for “trailblazing” climate action.
While this does not mean that the internationally agreed 1.5C temperature limit has been permanently breached, the UN warned that it is at “serious risk”.
“Scorching temperatures in 2024 require trailblazing climate action in 2025,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
“There is still time to avoid the worst climate catastrophe. But leaders must act now.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said six international datasets confirmed that 2024 was the hottest on record, ending a decade-long “unusual streak of record-breaking temperatures”. extended to
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provided one of the data sets, said last year was the highest on record in the mainland United States.
Another record-setting year is not expected in 2025, as climate skeptic Donald Trump takes office, and a deadline for nations to curb rising levels of greenhouse gases expires. has gone
But scientists predict that 2025 will still rank among the top three warmest years in the history books.
This extra heat supercharges extreme weather, and in 2024 countries from Spain to Kenya, the United States and Nepal were hit by disasters that some estimates cost more than $300 billion.
Los Angeles is battling wildfires that have destroyed thousands of buildings and forced tens of thousands from their homes. US President Joe Biden said the fires in California were the most “catastrophic” and proof that “climate change is real”.
The WMO said its comprehensive analysis of six datasets showed that the average global surface temperature was 1.55 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“This means we have likely experienced the first calendar year with a global average temperature of more than 1.5C above the 1850-1900 average,” he said.
Europe’s climate monitor Copernicus, which provided one of the datasets examined, found, for its part, that the past two years have exceeded the 2015 Paris Agreement’s temperature increase limit. Because global temperatures have risen beyond what modern humans have ever experienced. experienced”