Photo: Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)
The news surprised many in 2023 when scientists rang alarms and announced that we had been experiencing the hottest year ever recorded. Before July of 2024 had even began, less than halfway through the year, we were hearing a familiar tune from researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association who declared a “100% chance 2024 is among the five hottest years on record.” This week, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the European Union’s Earth Observation Program, announced 2024 is now “virtually certain” to be the warmest on record and the first ever where global temperatures exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
The latter part of that statement is significant because 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels has been the ceiling efforts like the Paris Climate Agreement strived to keep us beneath. Instead, the new report from C3S says 15 of the past 16 months have averaged above that threshold with October 2024 blasting above it at 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels.
“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. This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Photo: Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)
This latest monthly report from C3S comes just weeks after the United Nations released its annual Emissions Gap Report which labeled our current trajectory “Climate Crunch Time.” The UN called for capping CO2 emissions drastically in order to slow or reverse warming trends in tome for the Paris Agreement’s 2030 goals. The next goal would be to cut emissions by 57 percent by 2035, which they believe can be accomplished by investing heavily in solar and wind power.
“We’re teetering on a planetary tight rope,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. “Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster”.
