In recent months, climate catastrophes have incessantly hit the planet, from floods in Valencia (Spain) to hurricanes in the United States, summoning a whole range of superlatives: “extraordinary”, “dangerous”, “monstrous”… We will have to add Two records on the table from an exceptional year. In climate terms: 2024 is on track to be the hottest year ever observed, ahead of 2023, and will be the first in which warming exceeds the pre-industrial period by 1.5°C. For the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to ring “Maximum alert in the face of the frenetic pace of climate change”, in its interim report on the state of the climate in 2024 published on Monday, November 11.
Between January and September 2024, the average temperature on the surface of the globe exceeded the pre-industrial average by 1.54°C, according to the UN body, which synthesizes six international data sets (the European Copernicus Institute, NASA, etc. .) and whose estimates will be confirmed in January 2025. For sixteen consecutive months (June 2023 to September 2024), the global average temperature surpassed all previous records, and often with difference. The last ten years have also been the warmest on record. “2024 marks a historic turning point. “We are in the strong and expected trend of climate change”climatologist Christophe Cassou reacts.
This increase in temperature is due to greenhouse gas emissions related to human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), to which was added an El Niño episode. This natural phenomenon associated with a warming of the equatorial Pacific, which took place between June 2023 and June 2024, caused the global thermometer to rise and fueled numerous extreme events.
“While monthly and annual warming temporarily exceeds the 1.5°C target, this does not mean that we have failed to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement, it is important to emphasize this. »Celeste Saulo, secretary general of the WMO, said in a statement.
“Climate tipping points”
The most ambitious objective of the international treaty, which also aims to keep the global temperature well below 2°C, is intended for a long period of about twenty years, and not for one or more individual years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes that this threshold will be crossed sustainably in the early 2030s. “The ambitions of the Paris agreement are in great danger”warns the WMO.
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