Climate turmoil: People wade through floodwaters in a village in North Sumatra, Indonesia. Officials in Indonesia and Sri Lanka battled to reach survivors of deadly flooding on Dec 3, as the toll in the disaster that hit four countries topped 1,300. — AFP
Paris: The planet is on track to log its second-hottest year on record this year, tied with 2023 after a historic high last year, Europe’s global warming monitor says.
The data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service yesterday reaffirms that global temperatures are on course to exceed 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels – the threshold considered safer in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Temperatures rose by 1.48ºC on average between January and November, or “currently tied with 2023 to be the second-warmest year on record”, according to the service’s monthly update.
“The three-year average for 2023 to 2025 is on track to exceed 1.5ºC for the first time,” Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at Copernicus, said in a statement.
“These milestones are not abstract – they reflect the accelerating pace of climate change and the only way to mitigate future rising temperatures is to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Burgess said.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned in October that the world would not be able to contain global warming below 1.5ºC in the next few years.
Last month was the third warmest November on record at 1.54ºC above pre-industrial levels, according to Copernicus, with the average surface air temperature reaching 14.02ºC.
Such incremental rises may appear small but scientists warn that is already destabilising the climate and making storms, floods and other disasters fiercer and more frequent.
“The month was marked by a number of extreme weather events, including tropical cyclones in South-East Asia, causing widespread, catastrophic flooding and loss of life,” the monitor said.
The Philippines were ravaged by back-to-back typhoons that killed some 260 people in November, while Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were hit by massive floods.
The global average temperature for the northern hemisphere autumn, from September to November, was also the third highest on record after 2023 and 2024.
“Temperatures were mostly above average across the world and especially in northern Canada, over the Arctic Ocean, and across Antarctica,” the monitor said, adding that there were also notable cold anomalies in north-eastern Russia.
Copernicus takes its measurements using billions of satellite and weather readings, both on land and at sea, and their data extends back to 1940.
Global temperatures have been stoked ever higher by humanity’s emissions of planet-heating gases, largely from fossil fuels burned on a massive scale since the industrial revolution.
Nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels at the United Nation’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023 but ambitions have stalled since then.
The COP30 climate conference in Belem, Brazil, concluded last month with a deal that avoided a new, explicit call to phase out oil, gas and coal following objections from fossil fuel-producing countries. — AFP
