Global climate scientists have confirmed 2024 was the world’s hottest since records began, eclipsing the previous record set in 2023.
The rising temperatures have raised concerns that burning fossil fuels has left the planet ‘teetering on the brink’ of breaking the 1.5°C barrier set by the Paris Agreement.
Coordinated modelling and analysis produced by experts at NASA, European climate service Copernius, the US weather service NOAA, the UK Met Office, Berkeley Earth and the World Meteorological Organisation, found that every year in the past decade has been one of the hottest 10 on record.
For the first time in 2024 global average temperature was 1.6°C above the pre-industrial average, breaching the 1.5°C limit identified by scientists as necessary to maintain a safe and liveable climate long-term.
Climate Councillor, Professor David Karoly said these are not the records any climate scientist wants to see broken.
“When it comes to rising temperatures, rising sea levels and rising damage bills from unnatural disasters, every fraction of a degree matters,” Karoly said.
Meanwhile, the richest one per cent have burned through their share of the annual global carbon budget —the amount of CO2 that can be added to the atmosphere without pushing the world beyond 1.5°C of warming— within the first 10 days of 2025, according to a new Oxfam analysis.
In stark contrast, it would take someone from the poorest half of the global population nearly three years (1022 days) to use up their share of the annual global carbon budget.