2024 world's hottest year on record: comment

“21st July last year was the hottest day ever recorded by humans - a record broken the very next day. Now 2024 has topped 2023 and is the first to see average temperatures above 1.5°C. Whilst this doesn’t mean we’ve passed the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5°C yet, that doesn’t make it much less scary or significant, and world leaders should logically be expected to push climate action right up towards the top of their priorities in 2025.

“The next UN climate summit in Brazil needs all countries - especially wealthy and high-emitting countries - to bring forward ambitious new pledges to cut emissions, as early this year as possible. Worsening impacts from climate change - the California wildfires right now are expected to cost the state at least $135 billion in damages [2] - pose a growing threat to global and national security.

“Here at home, that has meant harm to the food we grow here - from the wettest winter in the UK hitting harvests [3] - as well as the 40% of our food which we import from all around the world. [4] This has directly contributed to the cost of living, with the average UK household food bill pushed up by £360 over the last couple of years. [5] This latest alarm warns just how fast we are running out of time to avoid even worse year on year, into the future.

“Without reaching net zero emissions, which means stopping making climate change worse, we will only see more records being broken in the future.”