‘Dangerous’ global warming threshold broken as 2024 named hottest-ever year | World | News
A key global warming threshold was breached for the first time last year, scientists have confirmed.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said 2024 was the hottest on record.
It was also the first year to breach the global warming threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The level was established in the 2015 Paris Agreement – using the baseline of 1850 to 1900 when many countries started emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide – to highlight when climate change risks becoming unacceptably severe.
Last year had an average temperaure 1.6C above pre-industrial levels, a jump of 0.1C from 2023.
Colin Morice, of the Met Office, said: “A single year exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial does not mean a breach of the Paris Agreement 1.5C guardrail – that would require a temperature of at least 1.5C on average over a longer period.
“However, it does show that the headroom to avoid an exceedance of 1.5C, over a sustained period, is now wafer thin.”
In 2015, world leaders pledged to try and prevent global temperatures rising by more than 1.5C.
It saw almost all the world’s nations – for the first time – agree to cut the greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming.
Scientists said floods in Valencia, US hurricanes, typhoons in the Philippines and the Amazon drought are just four disasters last year worsened by climate change.
The famous warming stripes image, which shows how Earth has warmed over the past 175 years, has been updated following the latest release of annual global temperature data.
Professor Ed Hawkins, the University of Reading scientist who created the image, said: “The climate stripes tell the story of how the planet has warmed up to now, reflecting our past choices on global carbon emissions.
“This new dark red stripe represents another year where our actions have caused the world to become warmer than ever before.
“At the current rate, our planet is on a path to routinely exceed the limit that world leaders and scientists understand puts us at much higher risk of climate change with significant impacts.
“A warmer world will lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather, more ice melting, continued sea level rise, and numerous other impacts on people and societies globally.
“The picture is stark, but we should not lose hope. The climate stripes represent humanity’s understanding of what’s happening now, but they aren’t a prediction of the future.
“The stripes represent the amalgamation of the work of thousands of scientists over decades, collecting billions of pieces of data into a single image.
“The same human knowledge and ingenuity is available to help humanity change course. Every action we take now to cut emissions will help to build a better climate future.”
