The year 2024 is set to be the warmest year on record, the United Nations’ (UN) weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said in an end-year statement on 30 December. This year caps a decade of unprecedented heat fuelled by human activities, the WMO said.

“In my first year as WMO Secretary-General, I have issued repeated Red Alerts about the state of the climate,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

“This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent. Tropical cyclones caused a terrible human and economic toll, most recently in the French overseas department of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Intense heat scorched dozens of countries, with temperatures topping 50°C on a number of occasions. Wildfires wreaked devastation,” Saulo said.

Her comments foreshadowed the expected findings of WMO’s formal consolidated global temperatures report for 2024, due to be published in early January.

In a close-up look at just 26 of the 219 major weather events of 2024, climate change-related extremes contributed to the deaths of at least 3,700 people in floods, typhoons, hurricanes, heat waves and wildfires, while leading to the displacement of millions.

This, according to a separate report by World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international consortium of scientists.

“It’s likely the total number of people killed in extreme weather events intensified by climate change this year is in the tens, or hundreds of thousands,” the report stated.

Extreme heat more and more devastating

Climate change also was responsible for an additional 41 days of dangerous heat exposure, per person, on average, in 2024 as compared to pre-industrial exposure levels, the WWA scientists found.

What is worse is that the countries that experienced the highest number of dangerous heat days are overwhelmingly small islands and developing states that tend to have limited resources to cope.

“Today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat. The top ten hottest years on record have happened in the last ten years, including 2024,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his own New Year message.

Even in the darkest days, I’ve seen hope power change.

There are no guarantees for what’s ahead in 2025.

But I pledge to stand with all those who are working to forge a more peaceful, equal, stable and healthy future for all people. pic.twitter.com/wD28KQBq2S

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) December 30, 2024

“This is climate breakdown – in real time. We must exit this road to ruin – and we have no time to lose. In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions, and supporting the transition to a renewable future,” Guterres said.

Runaway emissions locking in even more heat

Trends are only getting worse, according to the WMO. Currently, the world is at 1.3°C of human-induced warming. In the next five years the annual global temperature is very likely to temporarily breach the 1.5°C target above pre-industrial era that was the target set as a part of the Paris agreement.

And with the most recent UN climate conference COP in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku this November failing to set any new targets for reining in record high fossil fuel burning and emissions, while delivering only $300 billion annually of the $1trillion in climate finance demanded by the poor countries to make a green energy transition, the chances of halting and reversing those trends any time soon looked grim at year’s end.

“Every fraction of a degree of warming matters, and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks,” WMO’s Saulo also said in her a chilling warning. “Temperatures are only part of the picture. Climate change plays out before our eyes on an almost daily basis in the form of increased occurrence and impact of extreme weather events,” she said.

Better monitoring of GHG concentrations 

WMO is in the process of rolling out the Global Greenhouse Gas Watch initiative that will track the GHG concentrations and monthly net fluxes in the atmosphere, for carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O) at a 1° × 1° geographic latitude-longitude grid resolution (about 100×100 km spatial resolution).

The aim is to “reduce uncertainties and improve the reliability of GHG monitoring,” the organization said, thus helping countries track the atmospheric impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, while addressing data gaps.

Push for early warning systems, more data

The UN also is pushing countries to ramp up their own early warning extreme weather systems. Under the Early Warnings for All initiative, WMO plans to support countries in developing their climate services and delivery programmes.

Other multilateral agencies are also doing the same. In Asia, the Asian Development Bank Institute is pushing countries in the Asia and Pacific region to collect more climate data that could  help prioritize vulnerable communities and respond effectively.

Image Credits: WMO, WWA, WMO.