2024 'virtually certain' to be hottest year on record: EU monitor

This year is "virtually certain" to be the hottest in recorded history with warming above 1.5C, EU climate monitor Copernicus said on Nov. 7, days before nations are due to gather for crunch U.N. climate talks.

The European agency said the world was passing a "new milestone" of temperature records that should serve to accelerate action to cut planet-heating emissions at the U.N. negotiations in Azerbaijan next week.

Last month, marked by deadly flooding in Spain and Hurricane Milton in the United States, was the second hottest October on record, with average global temperatures second only to the same period in 2023.

Copernicus said 2024 would likely be more than 1.55 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average, the period before the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels.

This does not amount to a breach of the Paris deal, which strives to limit global warming to below 2C and preferably 1.5C, because that is measured over decades and not individual years.

"It is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels," said Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Deputy Director Samantha Burgess.

"This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29."

Meanwhile, average global temperatures have reached new peaks, as have concentrations of planet-heating gases in the atmosphere.

Scientists say the safer 1.5C limit is rapidly slipping out of reach, while stressing that every tenth of a degree of temperature rise heralds progressively more damaging impacts.