2024 will be the hottest year on record, EU scientists say

This year will be the world’s warmest since records began, with extremely high temperatures expected to persist at least into the first few months of 2025, European Union scientists said on Monday.

The data from the EU’s Climate Change Service (C3S) Copernicus comes two weeks after UN climate talks yielded a $300 billion deal to tackle climate change, a package poorer countries said was insufficient to cover the rising costs of climate-related disasters.

C3S said data from January to November confirmed that 2024 is now certain to be the warmest year on record and the first in which average global temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over the pre-industrial period 1850-1900.

The previous hottest year on record was 2023.

Extreme weather swept the world in 2024, with severe droughts hitting Italy and South America, deadly floods in Nepal, Sudan and Europe, heatwaves in Mexico, Mali and Saudi Arabia that killed thousands and devastating hurricanes in the US and the Philippines.

Scientific studies have confirmed the fingerprints of human-induced climate change on all these disasters.

Last month ranked as the second warmest November on record after November 2023.

“We are still in near-record territory for global temperatures and this is likely to remain so for at least the next few months,” said Copernicus climate researcher Julien Nicolas. Reuters.

Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change.

Reducing emissions to net zero – as many governments have committed to eventually doing – will stop global warming from worsening. However, despite these green commitments, global CO2 emissions are set to reach a record high this year.

Scientists are also watching to see if the La Nina weather pattern – which involves the cooling of ocean surface temperatures – could form in 2025.

This could temporarily reduce global temperatures, although it will not stop the long-term underlying trend of emissions-induced warming. The world is currently in neutral conditions, following the end of El Nino – the hottest counterpart to La Nina – earlier this year.

“While 2025 may be slightly cooler than 2024, if a La Nina event develops, this does not mean that temperatures will be ‘safe’ or ‘normal’,” said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at Imperial College London .

“We will continue to experience high temperatures, resulting in dangerous heat waves, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones.”

C3S records go back to 1940 and are cross-referenced with global temperature records dating back to 1850.