Global temperatures above 1.5 Cabove pre-industrial times for the first time in an entire year, according to scientists on Friday.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which stated that climate change is raising the planet’s temperature to levels that modern humans have never seen before, confirmed the milestone.
According to C3S director Carlo Buontempo, who told Reuters that the month of 2024 was the warmest or second-warmest for that month since records began, “the trajectory is just incredible.”
According to C3S, the average global temperature in 2024 was 1.6 degrees Celsius (34.9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it was between 1850 and 1900, the pre-industrial era before people started extensively burning fossil fuels that released carbon dioxide.
Each of the last ten years has been among the ten warmest on record, and last year was the hottest year on record.
The British Met Office predicted a slightly lower average temperature of 1.53C (34.75 Fahrenheit) for 2024, but confirmed that there would likely be a breach of 1.5C. On Friday, U.S. scientists will also release their climate data for 2024.
In order to prevent more severe and expensive climate disasters, governments pledged in the 2015 Paris Agreement to aim to keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5C.
That goal, which gauges the longer-term average temperature, is not exceeded in the first year when it rises above 1.5C. Buontempo added that although the globe was headed to surpass the Paris objective in the near future due to rising greenhouse gas emissions, it was still possible for nations to drastically reduce their emissions and prevent catastrophic warming.
It’s not finalized. According to Buontempo, we have the ability to alter the course going forward.
From the wealthiest to the poorest nations on the planet, the effects of climate change are now evident on every continent.
This week’s wildfires in California have damaged hundreds of houses and claimed at least ten lives. Thousands were murdered by heatwaves in Mexico and Saudi Arabia in 2024, while devastating fires also struck Bolivia and Venezuela. Torrential floods also struck Nepal, Sudan, and Spain.
Because a hotter atmosphere can contain more water, climate change is making storms and torrential rainfall worse. In 2024, the planet’s atmosphere contained a record amount of water vapor.
However, in other nations, political motivation to invest in reducing emissions has diminished despite the skyrocketing costs of these catastrophes.
Although there is widespread scientific agreement that climate change is human-caused and will have dire repercussions if left unchecked, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who into office on January 20, has referred to it as a hoax.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that in 2024, the United States had 24 weather and climate disasters, including Hurricanes Milton and Helene, with damages exceeding $1 billion.
According to Chukwumerije Okereke, a professor of global climate governance at the University of Bristol in Britain, the 1.5C milestone should act as a wake-up call for important political players to straighten out.
He told Reuters that countries “continue to fail to live up to their responsibilities despite all the warnings that scientists have given.”
According to C3S, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, hit a new high of 422 parts per million in 2024.
According to Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit organization in the United States, 2025 will probably rank among the hottest years on record, although not at the top.
According to him, it will continue to rank among the top three warmest years.
This is because, although human-caused emissions are the primary source of climate change, El Nino, a warming weather pattern that is currently moving toward its cooler La Nina cousin, contributed to early 2024 temperatures.