2024 is likely to become the first calendar year to exceed the threshold of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial period (1850-1900), set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The summer of 2024 was the hottest ever recorded on the planet, where temperature records have been continuing unabated for over a year, with their procession of heatwaves, droughts and deadly floods fueled by global warming.
From June to August, the three months of the northern hemisphere summer saw the highest global average temperature ever measured, already breaking the 2023 record, the European Copernicus Observatory announced on Friday, September 6. “In the last three months, the planet has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day and the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer.”warned Samantha Burgess, deputy head of Copernicus’ Climate Change Service (C3S), in her monthly newsletter. “This series of records increases the probability that 2024 will be the hottest year on record”also before 2023, she added.
Countries including Spain, Japan, Australia (in winter) and China have announced this week that they have measured historic heat levels for the month of August. “The extreme events observed this summer will only intensify, with devastating consequences for people and the planet, unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gases.”warned Samantha Burgess again. Humanity, which emitted around 57.4 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2022 according to the UN, has not yet started to reduce its carbon pollution. But China, the leading polluter ahead of the United States, is approaching its peak emissions, building twice as much capacity in wind and solar as the rest of the world.
From 30,000 to 65,000 deaths in Europe in 2023
In the meantime, climate scourges have followed one another on every continent. At least 1,300 people died in the heatwave during the pilgrimage to Mecca in June. India, regularly under temperatures of over 45°C, tested the limits of its electricity system and saw its economy slow down, before an intense monsoon and deadly floods. In the western United States, fires raged after several heatwaves that dried out vegetation since June and caused several deaths. In Nevada, Las Vegas experienced a record mercury of 48.9°C in July. In Morocco at the end of July, a brutal heatwave caused 21 deaths in 24 hours in the center of the country, in the grip of its sixth consecutive year of drought.
But full reports take time: a study published in mid-August revealed an estimate of 30,000 to 65,000 deaths in Europe, mainly among the elderly, due to the heat in 2023. In Asia, Typhoon Gaemi, which killed dozens of people in July and devastated regions in the Philippines and China, was exacerbated by global warming, confirmed a study published in August. At the same time, Japan was also badly hit by torrential rains from Typhoon Shanshan. In Niger, a desert Sahelian country severely weakened by climate change, floods in July caused at least 53 deaths and 18,000 homeless people.
Unprecedented overheating of the oceans
August 2024 ended with a global average temperature of 16.82°C according to Copernicus, or 1.51°C warmer than the average pre-industrial climate (1850-1900), in other words above the 1.5°C threshold, the most ambitious objective of the 2015 Paris Agreement. This emblematic threshold has already been broken in 13 of the last 14 months, according to Copernicus, for whom the last 12 months were on average 1.64°C warmer than in the pre-industrial era. After 2023 and its anomaly of 1.48°C according to Copernicus, 2024 therefore has a strong chance of becoming the first calendar year to exceed the fateful threshold. However, such an anomaly would have to be observed on average over several decades to consider that the climate, currently warmed by around 1.2°C, has stabilised at +1.5°C.
These incessant records are fueled by an unprecedented overheating of the oceans (70% of the globe), which have absorbed 90% of the excess heat caused by human activity: the average temperature at the surface of the seas has thus remained at abnormal temperatures since May 2023. This effect of global warming was accentuated for a year by El Niño and the end of this cyclical phenomenon over the Pacific a few months ago gave hope for a moderation of global temperatures. But in this case, the phenomenon “El Niño was not one of the strongest”notes for AFP Julien Nicolas, scientist of the C3S, and La Niña, the reverse cycle synonymous with cooling, is awaited. “Some models indicate a continuation of current neutral conditions while others indicate temperatures clearly colder than normal” in the tropical Pacific Ocean, “so it is still difficult to know what the end of the year has in store for us”he added.
