2024 was the hottest year on record: several climate records were broken

It has been officially confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record. Several climate records were broken simultaneously, pushing the world to a critical threshold.

According to the European climate monitoring agency Copernicus, last year was 1.6 degrees hotter than the period before people started burning large amounts of fossil fuels. This makes 2024 the first calendar year to breach the 1.5-degree limit that countries agreed to abide by under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, CNN reports.

The Copernicus analysis points to several climate records set last year: in July, the planet experienced its hottest day, every month from January to June was the warmest in the history of observations, and the level of pollution on the planet reached unprecedented levels.

Scientists say the past year is part of an abnormal heat wave. And behind these statistics lie huge losses. "Every fraction of an additional degree brings more and more harm to people and ecosystems," said Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London.

The extreme weather that gripped the globe last year shows just how dangerous living in a warmer world is. In particular, large-scale deadly fires raged around the world, which hit the United States earlier this year. And the constant hurricanes in the United States, caused by the increased ocean temperature, have killed hundreds of people.

We remember that more than 200 people died in Spain as a result of last year's catastrophic flood. And the Amazon rivers fell to an unprecedented low during the worst drought in the region's history. It is worth mentioning the Philippines, which last year experienced a season of frequent and destructive typhoons.

According to scientific analysis, the climate crisis played a role in all these extreme events in 2024.

Scientists believe that 2025 is unlikely to be another record year. After all, the declared La Niña, which is accompanied by a decrease in water temperature in the Pacific Ocean near the equator, has a global impact on cooling.

However, scientists say that the coming decades are likely to be even hotter as people continue to burn coal, oil, and gas, which are catastrophically heating the planet.

"The world doesn't need to come up with a magic solution to stop the situation from getting worse in 2025. We know exactly what we need to do to abandon fossil fuels," said German climatologist and extreme weather specialist Friederike Otto.

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