Europe’s climate service said on Friday that 2024 was the hottest calendar year on record and the first in which average temperatures exceeded the key limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial times, raising the importance of efforts to protect people from dangerous impacts.
The confirmation – widely trailed before the announcement – came as wildfires made worse by drought conditions rampaged across Los Angeles, causing at least 10 deaths, large-scale evacuations and panic in Hollywood, the affluent centre of the US film industry.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said that all of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850. That individual year reached 1.6C above an estimate of pre-industrial temperatures.
Each year in the last decade is one of the ten warmest on record, C3S added – in line with what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently described as “a decade of deadly heat” and “climate breakdown – in real time”.
C3S director Carlo Buontempo emphasised that “the underlying physics is very clear”, with the world’s warmer air and seas leading to more frequent and intense extreme events – from heatwaves to heavier rainfall and more destructive storms.
As a result, he said, “our traditional system to cope with and respond to extreme climate events is being tested to the limits. This is why adaptation is no longer an option – but a necessity.”
On the edge of 1.5C
Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs Copernicus, said the global temperature over the past two years – averaging 1.54C – had surpassed the internationally agreed aim of keeping warming to 1.5C, as set out in the 2015 Paris climate pact.
“We are now teetering on the edge of passing the 1.5C level defined in the Paris Agreement,” she said – although C3S emphasised that does not mean the flagship goal has been lost as it refers to an average over a period of at least 20 years.
“These high global temperatures, coupled with record global atmospheric water vapour levels in 2024, meant unprecedented heatwaves and heavy rainfall events, causing misery for millions of people,” Burgess added.
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Last month, researchers collaborating with the World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central projects said climate change had intensified 26 of the 29 extreme weather events they studied during 2024.
Those disasters killed at least 3,700 people and displaced millions – but were only a small sample of what was experienced on the frontlines of a hotter world. They included severe floods in eastern Spain, hurricanes in the US, drought in South America’s Amazon rainforest, and flooding across West and Central Africa.
‘Tested to the limits’
Government efforts to adapt to climate extremes – through measures such as installing alerting systems, preparing evacuation centres, strengthening homes and flood barriers, and protecting ecosystems – have lagged behind the gathering speed of impacts, leading to growing economic damage.
On Thursday, Munich Re, the world’s largest insurer, said hurricanes, storms, floods and other natural disasters caused an estimated $140 billion in insured losses in 2024, up from 2023 and one of the costliest years on record.
“We are facing very new climate challenges that our society is not prepared for,” C3S head Buontempo told a press briefing in response to a question from Climate Home. “The best we can do is build on the evidence we have and develop services and early warning systems that can deliver that protection and can improve our well-being effectively.”
He added that the tools, data and resources exist to make this happen, even though “it is a monumental challenge for society and… not easily implemented”.
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All-time high for greenhouse gases
C3S said the data it had compiled showed that the global average temperature in 2024 was 15.1C, overtaking 2023 – the previous warmest year – by 0.12C. Last year was also the warmest on record for all continents except Antarctica and Australasia, and registered the highest global average temperature in a single day (on July 22 at 17.16C) as well as the highest annual average sea surface temperature (20.87°C).
While 2024 was characterised by an El Niño weather pattern – caused by warming of the Pacific waters – which contributed to higher global temperatures, the scientists laid most of the blame on the increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere due to human activities.
In 2024, greenhouse gases saw their highest annual levels ever recorded in the atmosphere, with carbon dioxide concentrations reaching 422 ppm (parts per million) – 2.9 ppm higher than in 2023 – and methane increasing too.
Scientists stressed the need for stepped-up global efforts to cut those emissions – while also urging more adaptation measures to keep people safer from the consequences the world is already struggling with.
Mauro Facchini, head of Earth observation at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space, said some actions to adapt to a hotter planet are already underway through urban planning or managing land better to avoid flooding casualties, but bigger changes are needed.
“In the short-term we know that something is happening, and we have to adapt if we want to reduce the impacts on our daily lives,” he added.
(Reporting by Megan Rowling; editing by Sebastian Rodriguez)