PARIS: This year is “effectively certain” to be the hottest on record and the first above a critical threshold to protect the planet from dangerously overheating, Europe’s climate monitor said on Monday.

The new benchmark affirmed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service caps a year in which countries rich and poor were hammered by disasters that scientists have linked to humanity’s role in Earth’s rapid warming.

Copernicus said an unprecedented spell of extraordinary heat had pushed average global temperatures so high between January and November that this year was sure to eclipse 2023 as the hottest yet.

“At this point, it is effectively certain that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record,” the EU agency said in its monthly bulletin.

This year witnessed $310bn economic losses due to climate-induced disasters

Copernicus scientist Julien Nicolas said that 2025 would start with global temperatures “at near-record level” and this could persist for the next few months.

In another grim milestone, 2024 will be the first calendar year 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than before the industrial revolution when humanity started burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

According to provisional data, Copernicus said the year to date was almost 1.6C warmer than the pre-industrial era, taken as between 1850 and 1900.

Scientists say the risks of climate change increase with every fraction of a degree, and that exceeding 1.5C over a decades-long period would greatly imperil ecosystems and human societies.

Under the Paris accord on climate change, the world agreed to try and keep warming to this safer 1.5C threshold.

Copernicus Climate Change Service deputy director Samantha Burgess said a single year above 1.5C “does not mean that the Paris Agreement has been breached, but it does mean ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever.”

Catastrophic warming

The world is nowhere near on track. In October, the UN said the current direction of climate action would result in a catastrophic 3.1C of warming.

Emissions from fossil fuels keep rising despite a global pledge to move the world away from coal, oil and gas.

When burned, fossil fuels release greenhouse gases that raise global temperatures, with extra heat trapped in the oceans and atmosphere. Scientists say this warming effect disrupts climate patterns and the water cycle and makes extreme weather more frequent and ferocious.

2024 saw deadly flooding in Spain and Kenya, violent storms in the United States and the Philippines, and severe drought and wildfires across South America.

In total, disasters caused $310 billion in economic losses in 2024, Zurich-based insurance giant Swiss Re said this month.

Developing countries are particularly vulnerable and by 2035 will need $1.3 trillion a year in outside assistance for their energy transitions and to cope with climate change. At UN climate talks in November, big historic polluters most responsible for global warming committed to raising at least $300 billion annually by 2035, an amount decried as woefully inadequate.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2024