A statue of a horse stands sentinel over the charred remains of the Bridge Fire in Pinon Hills, California, captured on September 11, 2024. – AFP file
The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced on Thursday that this year is 'virtually certain' to surpass 2023 as the warmest year on record since measurements began. The data was made public ahead of the UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where nations aim to reach a consensus on significantly increasing funding to address climate change. The recent victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election has tempered expectations for the upcoming talks.
C3S reported that from January to October, the average global temperature was so elevated that 2024 is poised to become the hottest year globally, barring a dramatic near-zero temperature anomaly for the remainder of the year. 'The underlying cause of this year's record-breaking temperatures is climate change,' stated C3S Director Carlo Buontempo in an interview with Reuters. 'The climate is generally warming. It's warming across all continents and ocean basins. Thus, we are likely to witness these records being shattered,' he added.
Scientists predict that 2024 will also mark the first year in which the planet's temperature exceeds 1.5C above the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900, when human industrial activities began to burn fossil fuels on a large scale. Carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil, and gas combustion are the primary drivers of global warming.
Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, expressed that the milestone did not come as a surprise and called on governments at COP29 to take more robust actions to transition their economies away from CO2-emitting fossil fuels. 'The limits set in the Paris Agreement are beginning to falter due to the sluggish pace of climate action worldwide,' Seneviratne noted.
The 2015 Paris Agreement saw countries commit to preventing global warming from exceeding 1.5C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to avert its most severe impacts. Although the world has not yet breached this target, which refers to an average global temperature increase over decades, C3S anticipates that the Paris goal will be surpassed around 2030. 'It's practically imminent now,' Buontempo remarked.
Each incremental rise in temperature exacerbates extreme weather events. In October, devastating flash floods claimed hundreds of lives in Spain, unprecedented wildfires ravaged Peru, and flooding in Bangladesh destroyed over 1 million tons of rice, causing food prices to soar. In the U.S., Hurricane Milton was also intensified by human-induced climate change.
C3S's temperature records date back to 1940 and are corroborated by global temperature records extending back to 1850.
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