EU scientists predict 2024 will be the hottest year on record, surpassing 2023. This projection comes ahead of COP29, where countries are urged to enhance climate funding and action. Climate change is identified as the principal cause of rising temperatures, which have significant implications for global weather patterns and food security.
According to a report from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the year 2024 is projected to be the hottest on record, surpassing 2023. The assessment, issued just before the U.N. COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, highlights the extraordinary global temperatures recorded between January and October of this year. C3S Director Carlo Buontempo emphasized that “the fundamental, underpinning cause of this year’s record is climate change,” pointing to a general warming trend observed across all continents and ocean basins. Furthermore, 2024 is anticipated to mark the first instance in which the Earth’s average temperature exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels of 1850-1900. This rise is primarily attributed to carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels. Climate researcher Sonia Seneviratne has urged governments attending COP29 to take more decisive actions to transition away from CO2-emitting fossil fuels. She remarked that “the limits that were set in the Paris agreement are starting to crumble given the too-slow pace of climate action across the world.” While the 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to contain global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, projections suggest that this threshold could be exceeded by around 2030. The repercussions of climate change are evident, with increasing extreme weather events worldwide. Recent disasters include severe flooding in Spain, wildfires in Peru, and the destruction of over one million tons of rice in Bangladesh due to flooding, all of which have negatively impacted food prices. The C3S utilizes records dating back to 1940, corroborated with global temperature records from 1850, affirming the urgency of addressing climate change effectively and collaboratively.
The topic of climate change and its implications has come to the forefront of global discussions, particularly in relation to increasing temperatures and extreme weather events. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) provides crucial data and insights into these changes, further informing international climate summits, such as COP29. The projections from C3S illustrate a worrying trend of rising global temperatures, largely attributable to anthropogenic factors including fossil fuel combustion, which governments and scientists alike are compelled to address. The Paris Agreement remains a pivotal framework for nations striving to mitigate these climate changes, although its effectiveness is now under scrutiny.
In summary, the Copernicus Climate Change Service has indicated that 2024 will likely become the hottest year on record, driven predominantly by climate change and human activities. As nations prepare for the upcoming COP29 summit, the need for robust and immediate actions to address carbon emissions is critical. The challenges posed by rising temperatures are becoming increasingly apparent, necessitating urgent collective global solutions to avert severe climate consequences.
Original Source: www.swissinfo.ch
