Dangerous new era: Climate change spurs disaster in '24

From tiny and impoverished Mayotte to oil-rich behemoth Saudi Arabia, prosperous European cities to overcrowded slums in Africa, nowhere was spared the devastating impact of supercharged climate disasters in 2024.

This year is the hottest in history, with record-breaking temperatures in the atmosphere and oceans acting like fuel for extreme weather around the world.

World Weather Attribution, experts on how global warming influences extreme events, said nearly every disaster they analysed over the past 12 months was intensified by climate change.

"The impacts of fossil fuel warming have never been clearer or more devastating than in 2024.

We are living in a dangerous new era," said climate scientist Friederike Otto, who leads the WWA network.

That was tragically evident in June when more than 1,300 people died during the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia where temperatures hit 51.8 degrees Celsius.

Extreme heat - sometimes dubbed the 'silent killer' also proved deadly in Thailand, India, and United States.

Conditions were so intense in Mexico that howler monkeys dropped dead from the trees, while Pakistan kept millions of children at home as the mercury inched above 50C.

Greece recorded its earliest ever heatwave, forcing the closure of its famed Acropolis and fanning terrible wildfires, at the outset of Europe's hottest summer yet.