New data shows the planet is already a giant step closer to warming above 1.5 degrees Celsius, despite world leaders vowing a decade ago that they would try to avoid it.

Europe’s Copernicus climate service, one of the world’s major data providers, said on Friday that 2024 was the first calendar year to cross that symbolic threshold and was the hottest year on record globally.

This does not mean that the international target of 1.5 degrees Celsius has been broken, as that is the long-term average over decades, but it does bring us closer to achieving it as fossil fuel emissions continue to heat the atmosphere.

Last week, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described recent temperature records as “climate collapse.”

“We must get out of this path of destruction and we cannot waste any more time,” he said in his New Year’s address, calling on countries to cut emissions of planet-warming gases by 2025.

According to Copernicus, global average temperatures in 2024 will be about 1.6 degrees Celsius higher than in pre-industrial times (a period before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels).

this Break the record set in 2023 Temperatures have increased by just over 0.1 degrees Celsius, meaning the past 10 years have been the warmest on record.

The Met Office, NASA and other climate groups will release their own data later on Friday. Everyone is expected to agree that 2024 is the hottest year on record, although the exact numbers vary slightly.

Last year’s high temperatures were largely caused by human emissions of planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide, which remain at historically high levels.

Natural weather patterns such as El Niño, in which surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific become unusually warm, play a smaller role.

“By far the biggest factor affecting our climate is the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess told the BBC.

Since being agreed in Paris in 2015, the 1.5 degrees Celsius figure has become a powerful symbol in international climate negotiations, with many of the most vulnerable countries seeing it as an existential matter.

Risks from climate change, such as severe heat waves, rising sea levels and loss of wildlife, will be much higher at 2 degrees Celsius than at 1.5 degrees Celsius. Landmark UN report 2018.

However, the world is getting closer to breaking through the 1.5C barrier.

“Exactly when we will cross the long-term threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius is difficult to predict, but it is clear that we are now very close,” said Myles Allen from the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford and one of the authors of the UN report. “

On current trajectories, the world’s long-term warming could exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius by the early 2030s. This is politically significant, but it doesn’t mean it’s game over for climate action.

Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the Berkeley Earth Research Group, explains: “1.49 degrees Celsius is not good, and 1.51 degrees Celsius is doomsday — every tenth of a degree counts, and warming The greater the degree, the more severe the climate impacts will become.”

Even a small amount of global warming will bring more frequent and intense extreme weather, such as heat waves and heavy rainfall.

In 2024, the world will see West African heatextend Drought hits parts of South Americaintense Rainfall in Central Europe and some special severe tropical storm Attacks North America and South Asia.

These events are just some of the climate change intensifies last year, according to the World Weather Attribution Organization.

Even this week, as new data is released, Los Angeles is still being swamped by destructive wildfires fueled by high winds and a lack of rain.

While there are many contributing factors to this week’s events, Experts say California fires are increasingly likely In a warming world.

It’s not just temperatures that will set new records in 2024. The world’s sea level also hit a new single-day highwhile the total amount of moisture in the atmosphere has reached record levels.

It’s no surprise that the world is breaking new records: 2024 has been expected to be hot due to the influence of the El Niño weather pattern. It ended around April last year – In addition to human-caused warming.

But the gaps in several records in recent years have been unexpected, and some scientists worry they could represent an acceleration of global warming.

“I think it’s safe to say that both 2023 and 2024 will surprise most climate scientists – we didn’t expect to see temperatures above 1.5 degrees Celsius so early in the year,” Dr Hausfather said.

Helge Gößling, a climate physicist at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute, agrees: “Since 2023, we have had about 0.2 degrees Celsius of additional warming on top of what we expected from climate change and El Niño. , but we cannot fully explain this phenomenon.”

Various theories have been proposed to explain this “extra” warmth, such as a significant reduction in low-level clouds that tend to cool the planet, and continued high temperatures in the oceans after El Niño ends.

Dr Gosling added: “The question is whether this acceleration is related to human activity, meaning we will have more intense warming in the future, or whether it is part of a natural change.”

“It’s hard to say at this point.”

Despite this uncertainty, scientists stress that humans can still control the future climate and that significant reductions in emissions can mitigate the consequences of warming.

Dr Hausfather said: “Even if 1.5 degrees of temperature rise becomes impossible, we can still limit warming to 1.6, 1.7 or 1.8 degrees Celsius this century.”

“That’s much better than if we continue to burn coal, oil and gas unabated and end up getting to 3 degrees Celsius or 4 degrees Celsius – which is still important.”