THE PAST DECADE has been the warmest 10-year period of of modern records and 2024 is on track to be the hottest single year, smashing the record that was already broken last year in 2023.
It is “another SOS” for the climate, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Secretary General Celeste Saulo has said at the COP29 climate conference, where international talks are underway to secure agreements on global climate action.
“Once again, we are sending a red alert, one of many that I have issued in less than one year as Secretary General. This is another SOS for the climate,” Saulo said.
“2024 will be the hottest year on record, hotter even than 2023, which smashed all previous records.”
The global average temperature between January and September 2024 was 1.54 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, the WMO has confirmed in a 2024 State of the Climate Update report released at COP29.
It doesn’t yet represent a breach of the 1.5 limit set by the Paris Agreement, which will be measured over a period of several years rather than a single one, but it is still yet another wake up call to the reality of the changing climate.
Its findings are in line with those of the EU’s Copernicus service, which has also declared it be “virtually certain” that 2024 will be the hottest year of modern records.
Antarctic sea ice was at its second lowest level on record last year and glacier loss accelerated, the WMO said, and extreme weather and climate events in 2024 caused “massive” human and economic losses.
“These are more than just statistics, more than just words. Every degree of warming matters and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks,” Saulo said, addressing media at a press conference at the COP in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Secretary General of the @WMO Celeste Saulo sounding the alarm pic.twitter.com/H1nLwfpm3o
— Lauren Boland (@laurenanna_1) November 11, 2024
The WMO says countries need to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen monitoring and understanding of climate change, as well as increase support for climate adaptation and early warning systems for extreme weather events.
The report comes as countries from around the world meet at COP29 for negotiations on matters like climate mitigation, adaptation and finance.
The most significant item on this year’s agenda is finance; negotiators will try to secure an agreement on a new target for funding for developing countries to help them deal with the climate crisis.
At the opening plenary of the summit, the UN’s top climate executive Simon Stiell said that the world “mustn’t let 1.5 slip out of reach”.
“Even as temperatures rise, the implementation of our agreements must claw them back,” Stiell said.
“In these halls, we negotiate on specific pieces of the puzzle each year,” he said, adding that the negotiations can “feel far away” from the lives of ordinary people experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change now but that the world “cannot afford to continue up-ending lives and livelihoods in every nation”.
“Do you want your grocery and energy bills to go up even more? Do you want your country to become economically uncompetitive? Do you really want even further global instability, costing precious life?” Stiell said.
“This crisis is affecting every single individual in the world in one way or another,” he said.
“I’m as frustrated as anyone that one single COP can’t deliver the full transformation that every nation needs. But if any of your answers to those questions was no, then it is here that Parties need to agree a way out of this mess.”
“That’s why here in Baku, we must agree a new global climate finance goal.
If at least two thirds of the world’s nations cannot afford to cut emissions quickly, then every nation pays a brutal price.
“If nations can’t build resilience into supply chains, the entire global economy will be brought to its knees. No country is immune,” Stiell said.
“So, let’s dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity. An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest.”
The Journal’s Lauren Boland is in Azerbaijan to cover COP29 and is sending out special editions of our climate newsletter Temperature Check – you can sign up to receive it here.
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