European Union scientists said on Monday that this year will be the hottest on record, with unusually high temperatures likely to continue into early 2025.
The data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) comes two weeks after U.N. climate talks yielded a $300-billion deal to tackle climate change, a package poorer countries blasted as insufficient to cover the soaring cost of climate-related disasters.
C3S said data from January to November had confirmed 2024 is now certain to be the hottest year on record, and the first in which average global temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period.
The previous hottest year on record was 2023.
Extreme weather has swept around the world in 2024, with severe drought hitting Italy and South America, fatal floods in Nepal, Sudan and Europe, heatwaves in Mexico, Mali and Saudi Arabia that killed thousands, and disastrous cyclones in the United States and the island republic of the Philippines.
Scientific studies have confirmed the fingerprints of human-caused climate change on all of these disasters.
Last month ranked as the second-warmest November on record after November 2023.
“We’re still in near-record-high territory for global temperatures, and that’s likely to stay at least for the next few months,” European Copernicus climate researcher Julien Nicolas told Reuters.
Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change.
“While 2025 might be slightly cooler than 2024, if a La Nina event develops, this does not mean temperatures will be ‘safe’ or ‘normal’,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London.
“We will still experience high temperatures, resulting in dangerous heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones.”
C3S’ records go back to 1940, and are cross-checked with global temperature records going back to 1850.
(With inputs from Reuters)
