UN weather agency confirms 2024 as warmest year on record

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NEW DELHI: The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on Friday declared 2024 as the warmest year on record.

The global average surface temperature was 1.55 degrees Celsius. The WMO said this means the world has experienced the first calendar year with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

This gave a jolt to the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change that aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “Blazing temperatures in 2024 require trailblazing climate action to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius as agreed upon in the Paris Agreement. Today’s assessment from the WMO proves yet again that global heating is a cold, hard fact. Individual years pushing past the 1.5-degree limit do not mean the long-term goal is shot. It means we need to fight even harder to get on track. Blazing temperatures in 2024 require trail-blazing climate action in 2025.”

“There’s still time to avoid the worst of the climate catastrophe. But leaders must act now,” he said.

The WMO provides a temperature assessment based on multiple sources of data to support international climate monitoring.

It has utilised the datasets from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, Japan Meteorological Agency, NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office in collaboration with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and Berkeley Earth.

All six datasets place 2024 as the warmest year on record and highlight the recent rate of warming.

WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis said that globally there were many climate change impacts, including retreating sea ice glaciers.

“We saw extraordinary land, sea surface temperatures, extraordinary ocean heat accompanied by very extreme weather affecting many countries around the world, destroying lives, livelihoods, hopes and dreams,” she said.

“Climate history is playing out before our eyes. We’ve had not just one or two record-breaking years, but a full 10-year series. This has been accompanied by devastating and extreme weather, rising sea levels and melting ice, all powered by record-breaking greenhouse gas levels due to human activities,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

“It is important to emphasise that a single year of more than 1.5 degree Celsius does not mean that we have failed to meet Paris Agreement long-term temperature goals, which are measured over decades rather than an individual year. However, it is essential to recognise that every fraction of a degree of warming matters. Whether it is at a level below or above 1.5°C of warming, every additional increment of global warming increases the impacts on our lives, economies and our planet,” he added.