World marks full year of average temperatures exceeding 1.5C target

By Aaron Clark

Global average temperatures have now hit or exceeded a key climate threshold for 12 months, highlighting the challenge in limiting global warming to below 1.5C above the pre-industrial era.

The average for the year through June 2024 was 1.64C higher than the era from 1850 to 1900, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a report published Monday. Last month was the hottest ever June, the 13th consecutive time a month has set a new average temperature record. 

“This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a large and continuing shift in our climate,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the service, said in a statement. “Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records,” unless nations stop adding greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere and the oceans.

More than 1,300 Hajj pilgrims died last month as temperatures in Saudi Arabia reached about 52C, while firefighters in Greece tackled dozens of blazes and European capitals sweltered. Extreme heat has wreaked havoc across many parts of the global economy already this year, disrupting air travel to power grids.

The Paris Agreement set in 2015 seeks to limit planetary warming to below 2C above the pre-industrial average, and ideally to 1.5C. Those averages are calculated over a 20 or 30 year period, rather than over a span of 12 months, according to the EU’s climate change service.