According to the EU’s climate service, annual global warming has surpassed 1.5C for the first time in a full year.
International leaders made a commitment in 2015 to attempt to keep the global temperature increase to 1.5C, which is thought to be essential to help prevent the worst effects.
Although this initial year-long violation does not violate the historic Paris Agreement, it does eventually move the world closer to doing so.
Scientists claim that rapid carbon emission reductions can still slow annual global warming.
The previous head of the UN body responsible for climate change, Prof. Sir Bob Watson, stated on BBC Radio 4’s Today Program that “this far exceeds anything that is acceptable.”
“Look what’s happened this year with only 1.5C – we’ve seen catastrophes, we’ve seen droughts, we’ve seen scorching temperatures and wildfires all over the world.”
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reports that the annual global warming from February 2023 to January 2024 was 1.52C. The comparison with prior years is displayed in the graph that follows.
The most recent climate warning coincides with the announcement that the Labour Party is making a significant U-turn and abandoning its promise to spend £28 billion annually on green investments. In September, the Conservatives also conceded on a number of important fronts.
This indicates that the two major parties in the UK have backed down from the kind of commitments that many climate scientists believe are necessary for the world to avoid the worst effects of annual global warming.
What makes the Paris Climate Agreement relevant today?
A number of commitments are listed in the agreement:
- “Pursue efforts” to keep global temperature increases “well below” 2
- 0C over pre-industrial levels and to restrict them to 1.5C.
- To achieve “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions from human activity between 2050 and 2100, or the lowest levels that soil, forests, and oceans can naturally absorb.
- Every nation shall establish its own emission reduction goals, which shall be raised every five years.
- Richer nations should support poorer countries by supplying climate funds so they can transition to renewable energy sources and adapt to climate change.
It is widely acknowledged that the 1.5C objective refers to an average over 20 years as opposed to a single year.
What has been the reason behind the 1.5C break in the past year?
Without a doubt, the long-term annual global warming trend is mostly due to human activity. Carbon dioxide and other gases produced by burning fossil fuels warm the planet. This is also responsible for the vast bulk of the warmth that has been felt during the past year.
Although it typically only raises air temperatures by 0.2C, El Niño, a naturally occurring phenomenon that heats the climate, has also increased air temperatures in recent months.
The world’s average air temperature began to climb by more than 1.5C almost daily when El Niño began to develop in the second half of 2023, and this trend persisted into 2024.
In a few months, El Niño conditions are predicted to end, which could allow global temperatures to momentarily stabilize before gradually declining and likely returning below the 1.5C threshold.
But in the upcoming decades, temperatures will still rise despite the fact that human activity is increasing the amount of annual global warming gasses in the atmosphere.
Is it possible to restrict annual global warming?
Within the next ten years, the Paris Agreement’s long-term average temperature target of 1.5C, as opposed to a single year, may be exceeded at the current rate of emissions.
However, the effects of climate change would only get stronger with each little increase in warmth, as the intense heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and floods of the last 12 months have shown us.
An extra half a degree of annual global warming, or the difference between 1.5C and 2C, also considerably increases the likelihood of breaching so-called tipping points.
These are thresholds in the climate system that, if breached, might result in sudden and potentially irreversible changes.
For instance, during the ensuing millennia, catastrophic surges in global sea levels could result from the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets collapsing due to a probable uncontrolled collapse.
However, scientists are eager to point out that people can still influence the course of annual global warming.
Globally, there has been some advancement as evidenced by the growth of green technologies such as electric vehicles and renewable energy sources in various regions.
Some of the worst case scenarios of 4C or more of warming this century, which were considered realistic a decade ago, are therefore now viewed as significantly less likely based on current policies and pledges.
Most reassuring of all, it’s still believed that once net zero carbon emissions are achieved, annual global warming would essentially end. This decade’s effective emission halving is thought to be very important.
According to Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with the US organization Berkeley Earth, “that means we can ultimately control how much warming the world experiences, based on our choices as a society, and as a planet.”
