«After the first 10 months of 2024, it is now virtually certain that the 2024 will be the hottest year on record and the first year at more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” To declare it is Samantha Burgessdeputy director of the Climate Change Service of Copernicusthe European Earth monitoring satellite programme. According to Copernicus data and analyses, the period between January and October 2024 recorded an increase in average global temperature of 0.71°C compared to the average for the same period between 1991 and 2020, which is the highest value ever recorded; the previous record was set in 2023, which was also the warmest year on record. Even though there are still two months to go until the end of the year, it is now virtually certain that 2024 will beat last year’s temperature record.
What the Copernicus report says about 2024 temperatures
Making the projection for the whole year it is expected that 2024 will have an average global temperature around 1.6°C compared to the pre-industrial average (period 1850-1900): this would be the highest annual thermal anomaly ever recorded and the first to exceed the limit of +1.5 °C established as a safety threshold by the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and as a preferential objective of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The news certainly doesn’t come as a bolt from the blue: after all all months of 2024 were the respective warmest since records existand all had thermal anomalies systematically above the threshold of +1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial times. In fact, every month since June 2023 has been a batch – it must be said – of the respective warmest months according to the Copernicus database.
As can be seen from the image above, globally the thermal anomalies of the first half of the current year are significantly higher than those of any other year since 1940, while the second half is only beaten by 2023, but we still remain definitely above the average of the last 80 years. If we use the more recent thirty-year period 1991-2020 as a reference period instead of the pre-industrial period, the gap between 2024 and 2023 appears even more evident.
The 2024 record in the aftermath of Trump’s victory and on the eve of COP29
The alarming Copernicus report on 2024 temperatures comes just a few days after the opening of the COP29the 29th annual United Nations conference on tackling the climate crisis, which will start on 11 November 2024 and will be held in Bakuin Azerbaijan. The UN Conferences of the Parties are an important moment to take stock of the progress of member countries towards the objectives of the Paris Agreement and to establish strategies useful for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the main causes of the current global warming and the crisis ongoing climate change.
The last COP, held in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December, despite the doubts linked to the then president Al Jaber, still ended with a substantial success. This year though the atmosphere is much more uncertainalso because COP29 will take place the day after overwhelming Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections. In fact, the Republican president did not fail, in his previous mandate as in the last electoral campaign, to show positions of total disinterest with respect to climate change («The ocean will rise, who the hell cares?», he declared at a rally in May) when not open hostility (like having ridden the slogan «Drill, baby, drill»).
The new President has also announced several times his desire to abolish theInflation Reduction Actthe largest initiative implemented by the USA to combat climate change, signed in 2022 by Joe Biden with the commitment, among other things, to invest 370 billion dollars to reduce US greenhouse emissions by 40% by 2030. The tycoon also struck agreements with the oil industries during his last election campaign. It is therefore likely that his victory will influence the delicate match that will be played in Baku with COP29.
