‘Virtually Certain’ 2024 Will Be The Hottest Year On Record, EU Climate Body Says

Topline

The European Union’s climate monitoring body said Thursday that it was “virtually certain” that 2024 will be the planet’s hottest year on record, a warning that comes a week ahead of the UN’s COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan and around two months before President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House—who is all but certain to pull the U.S. out of the critical Paris climate agreement.

Key Facts

In a press release on Thursday, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said the average global temperature in 2024 will almost certainly be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average—likely more than 1.55 degrees Celsius.

Last month was the second warmest October on record, after October 2023, with an average temperature 1.65 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial numbers and 0.71 C above the 1991-2020 global average.

If the C3S’s forecast is correct, 2024 will be the second consecutive calendar year where the all-time yearly average temperature record will be broken.

Earlier this year, C3S and the UN’s World Meteorological Organization labeled 2023 as the hottest year on record—with the EU agency pegging the increase in global temperature at 1.48 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average, while the UN reported a slightly lower spike of 1.45 degrees Celsius.

Why Is The 1.5 Degrees Climate Threshold Significant?

According to the C3S forecast, 2024 will be the first calendar year on record where the global average temperature is more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the pre-industrial average. This is an important threshold, as the signatories of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement have set 1.5 degrees Celsius as the preferred limit for the increase in global temperatures above pre-industrial numbers, with 2 degrees Celsius being the upper limit. While the 2024 average being above the Paris Agreement’s preferred limit doesn’t mean the treaty has failed, as it is only the average number for a single year, it serves as a potent warning on how fast global temperatures are spiking.

Crucial Quote

The EU agency’s deputy director Samantha Burgess said: “This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29.”