The last year, 2024, has become the first year to breach the 1.5 degree Celsius warming mark, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Friday. Average annual global temperature in 2024, based on data from six different datasets, was 1.55 degree Celsius higher than pre-industrial times (average of 1850-1900 period), it said. One of these datasets, from Copernicus Climate Change Service run by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, found the warming to be 1.6 degree Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels. 2024 now overtakes 2023 as the warmest year ever recorded. 2023 was recorded to be 1.45 degree Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times. WMO said each of the six datasets it had used had put 2024 as the warmest year ever, but not all of them recorded the warming to be in excess of 1.5 degrees Celsius. Incidentally, 2024 was warmest for India as well, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had said earlier this month, though not to the extent of breaching the 1.5 degree threshold. Temperature records over India do not extend to pre-industrial times, and even otherwise, the warming over the Indian land area is significantly less than the global average. The 1.5 degree Celsius mark is an important threshold mentioned in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which calls upon the world to restrict the rise in global temperatures to “well below 2 degree Celsius” from pre-industrial levels while “pursuing efforts” to keep this within 1.5 degree Celsius. The Paris Agreement says that pursuing the 1.5 degree Celsius target “would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”. The 2024 breach, however, does not necessarily mean that the 1.5 degree Celsius goal is over. The 1.5, or 2, degree Celsius targets are meant to be seen in the context of long-term temperature trends and not in year-to-year, or month-to-month, temperature variations. For example, monthly average temperatures have crossed the 1.5 degree Celsius mark several times during the last two years. Daily average temperatures have breached this mark hundreds of times. From the climate change perspective, however, the 1.5 degree mark would be considered to have been breached only if the averages over a decade or two remain above the thresholds. “It is important to emphasise that a single year of more than 1.5°C for a year does not mean that we have failed to meet the Paris Agreement long-term temperature goals, which are measured over decades rather than an individual year. However, it is essential to recognise that every fraction of a degree of warming matters. Whether it is at a level below or above 1.5°C of warming, every additional increment of global warming increases the impacts on our lives, economies and our planet,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. The two consecutive years of record-breaking temperatures, 2023 and 2024, have ensured that each of the past ten years (2015-2024) now figures in the 10 warmest years on record. Every month since July 2023, except for July 2024, exceeded the 1.5 degree warming, ECMWF data shows. However, the year 2025 is unlikely to follow the trend of the last two years. Early estimates suggest that this year is not expected to create a new temperature record.
