How hot does it need to get to spur climate action?

This year was the warmest on record, yet humanity shows little wherewithal to reverse course.

- Mark Gongloff

This has been the hottest year in recorded human history. Its unprecedented temperatures stoked devastating wildfires, floods, cyclones, droughts and heatwaves that cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage. At the rate we're going, it will also be one of the coolest, calmest years any of us will ever experience again.

Just how much hotter and more destructive the atmosphere will become depends on the choices humanity makes, starting today. At the moment, we're still making too many bad ones.

On Dec 9, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said 2024 will almost certainly be the hottest year on record, with global average surface temperatures about 1.6 deg C above pre-industrial averages. That will top the previous record, set all the way back in 2023.

Significantly, this will also be the first year on record with global temperatures 1.5 deg C above pre-industrial averages. That was the fingers-crossed, best-case global heating goal the world set for itself in the Paris Agreement of 2015. Breaching 1.5 deg C for one year doesn't mean that goal is a lost cause. The Paris Agreement referred to long-term averages, not one-year anomalies.