2024 ‘virtually certain’ to be world’s hottest year on record, EU scientists say

This year is “virtually certain” to eclipse 2023 as the world’s warmest since records began, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) says.

The data is released ahead of next week’s UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where countries will try to agree on a huge increase in funding to tackle climate change. Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has dampened expectations for the talks.

C3S says that from January to October, the average global temperature had been so high that 2024 was sure to be the world’s hottest year – unless the temperature anomaly in the rest of the year plunged to near-zero.

The scientists say 2024 will also be the first year in which the planet is more than 1.5 ºC hotter than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale.

Carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil and gas are the main cause of global warming.

Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to prevent global warming surpassing 1.5 ºC (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), to avoid its worst consequences.

The world has not breached that target – which refers to an average global temperature of 1.5 ºC over decades – but C3S now expects the world to exceed the Paris goal around 2030.