• The effects of human-driven climate change surged to alarming levels in 2024, with some consequences likely to be irreversible for centuries — if not millennia — according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). 

• The latest ‘State of the Global Climate’ report confirms 2024 as the hottest year since records began 175 years ago, with a global mean temperature of 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels — surpassing the critical warming threshold of 1.5°C for the first time. 

• While a single year above 1.5°C doesn’t break the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals (a long-term average below 1.5°C), it is a stark warning of the urgent need for emissions reduction.

• Multiple climate indicators also set new records.

• Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, as well as methane and nitrous oxide, are at the highest levels in the last 800,000 years.

• Around 90 per cent of the energy trapped by greenhouse gases in the Earth system is stored in the ocean.

• In 2024, ocean heat content reached its highest level in the 65-year observational record.

• Glaciers and sea ice are rapidly melting, contributing to a rise in global sea levels that threatens coastal ecosystems and infrastructure worldwide.

• In 2024, global mean sea level was the highest since the start of the satellite record in 1993 and the rate of increase from 2015-2024 was double that from 1993–2002.

• Furthermore, tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and other hazards last year led to the highest number of new displacements recorded in 16 years, contributing to worsening food crises, and fuelling massive economic losses.

Irreversible changes

• The report explains that the record-breaking global temperatures in 2023 and 2024 were primarily driven by increasing greenhouse gas emissions, amplified by the transition from La Nina to El Nino.  

• Other factors that might have contributed include solar cycle variation, volcanic activity and changes in ocean circulation.

• Scientists also underscore the urgency of taking action, outlining some already irreversible changes – including the rate of sea level rise – that has doubled since satellite measurements began.

• Projections show that ocean warming, which reached its highest level on record, will continue over the rest of the 21st century and beyond, even if the world were to significantly reduce emissions. 

• Similarly, ocean acidification will continue to increase for the rest of this century, at rates dependent on future emissions.

Other key findings:

• Globally, each of the past ten years were individually the ten warmest years on record.

• Each of the past eight years has set a new record for ocean heat content.

• The 18 lowest Arctic sea-ice extents on record were all in the past 18 years.

• The three lowest Antarctic ice extents were in the past three years.

• The largest three-year loss of glacier mass on record occurred in the past three years.

• The rate of sea level rise has doubled since satellite measurements began.

• In 2024, ocean heat content reached its highest level in the 65-year observational record.

• Tropical cyclones were responsible for many of the highest-impact events of 2024. These included Typhoon Yagi in Vietnam, the Philippines and southern China.

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