2024 will be the warmest year on record

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The Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed on Monday that an unprecedented heat wave has driven average global temperatures between January and November so high that 2024 is almost certain to become the warmest year on record the European Union agency said in a monthly bulletin.

Copernicus uses a huge amount of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations. This makes climate calculations increasingly accurate. The data records go back to 1940 but scientists also work with other climate sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons.

This November was the second warmest on record, only surpassed by November 2023. Today, we know that in Portugal, November temperatures were 2.69 degrees Celsius above the 1981-2010 average.

The year 2024 will go down in history as the first year in which the average global temperature has risen by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, before the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists around the world are strongly warning that exceeding this threshold poses a threat to the entire planet. That is why the international community has agreed to do everything possible to limit further warming.

The world is currently nowhere near meeting the 1.5 degree Celsius target, which is why the UN said in October that the current course of climate action would lead to a catastrophic warming of 3.1 degrees Celsius.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are certainly among the main causes of climate change. Fossil fuel emissions are constantly increasing, despite all measures and commitments to a global shift away from coal, oil and gas.

Scientists are certain that global warming is causing extreme weather events across the planet. This year, global warming has been most evident in the form of a prolonged drought in the Amazon, widespread fires, and flooding in Europe.

The good news is that the issue of rising global temperatures is starting to be addressed more, as evidenced by the fact that at the UN climate talks in November rich countries pledged to allocate $300 billion by 2035 to combat warming.

Source:Aljazeera/Editorial