News review of the year 2024
By the Climate Centre
(A look back at the year’s main events through the eyes of the Climate Centre news service.)
January
The year began with two reports highlighting the modern increase in the global mean temperature. This reached 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels and “strongly increased the intensity of heatwaves, droughts and extreme rainfall associated with storms,” according to the XAIDA scientific partnership that includes the Climate Centre.
The World Meteorological Organization, meanwhile, confirmed 2023 was the warmest year on record “by a huge margin”.
In the first of a series of reports in a busy year for World Weather Attribution, the team said climate change not El Niño was the main driver of severe drought in the Amazon basin, actually making it 30 times more likely.
In the same month, two WWA studies demonstrated that climate change is making the most extreme cold in Scandinavia and Finland less likely and precipitation from winter storms in Eastern Europe yet more intense.
February
The IFRC and the Climate Centre announced that Dr Aditya V. Bahadur would take over as the centre’s new director on 1 May, joining from its partner organization, the International Institute for Environment and Development, where he led the research strategy team and work on urban resilience. He will be based in Delhi.
Dr Bahadur began his career as a volunteer for the IFRC’s regional delegation in the Indian capital, from where he worked closely with the National Societies of South Asia.
In one of the first and most dramatic climate impacts of the year, millions of people in California faced serious flood threats and more torrential rainfall after a second “atmospheric river” hit the state over one weekend, the American Red Cross said.
Red Cross teams assisted communities in several California regions with emergency shelter, food, health services and other essentials, including critical financial assistance, eyeglasses and prescription medications.
Elsewhere in the Americas, the Red Cross helped thousands of people affected by the wildfires the UN said were believed to be the deadliest on record in Chile.
Juan Bazo, the Climate Centre’s Regional Representative for Latin America, told the IFRC’s Americas Regional Communications Manager, Susana Arroyo, in a special Q&A that warming oceans and El Niño have caused some storms to gain strength far more rapidly than predicted.
The Resilient Islands project for the Caribbean – a five-year initiative of the IFRC and The Nature Conservancy, supported by the German government’s international climate initiative – officially ended with a closing ceremony in Panama City.
March
The IFRC and the Climate Centre rolled out their full seven-stage climate action journey that was trialled by the National Societies of Malawi, Nigeria and Pakistan and encompasses the key concepts of climate-smart operations and locally led adaptation.
It had earlier been formally presented at a training session in Naivasha, Kenya (photo) attended by representatives of 20 African National Societies.
We reported on a WWA study concluding that monsoon rainfall that led to deadly floods and landslides on the Philippine island of Mindanao had been made some 50 per cent more intense by climate change.
We also covered the World Bank’s three-day Fragility Forum in Washington, DC, at which the Climate Centre outlined the forthcoming Movement strategy for disaster risk reduction in the context of fragility, conflict and violence.
El Niño peaked between November and January as one of the five strongest ever recorded.
Another WWA study found that if the planet warms to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, West Africa would experience dangerous regionwide heatwaves “about once every two years”.
A high-level meeting hosted by the IFRC and the United States Agency for International Development concluded that extreme heat is a silent yet formidable adversary that, without action, will kill thousands in coming years, but there was also “plenty that can be done”.
‘Extreme heat is one of the most pressing challenges of the climate crisis’
April
Two team blogs by Cornelia Scholz and Devin O’Donnell covered, respectively, mapping for anticipatory action in Timor-Leste and creative dialogues on mental health and climate change.
WWA scientists found the extreme heatwave that hit the Sahel region from late March may have caused scores of deaths would not have occurred without climate change; temperatures were as much as 1.5°C hotter than normal in Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal, often reaching 45°C.
Also in April, the 2023 European State of the Climate report said heat-related deaths on the continent have increased by around 30 per cent in the past two decades.
Climate Centre Director of Operations, Julie Arrighi, who also leads its work on heat, said the “rising risk of extreme heat is one of the most pressing challenges of the climate crisis.” She described the European report as “a warning shot of what’s to come if we don’t accelerate mitigation and adaptation”.
The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society for the first time activated its early action protocol for heatwave, enabling anticipatory actions in the capital, Dhaka, before the worst impacts of the current extreme heat were likely to be felt. IFRC-DREF sent half a million Swiss francs to support actions that will assist 124,000 vulnerable people.
Climate Centre science lead Liz Stephens told Sky News that intense seasonal rainfall in Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania highlighted the need for the international community and donors to come together to ensure such countries had “the resources they need to support the comprehensive management of flood risk”.
May
Climate Centre scientists noted a rising trend of average temperatures in Gaza – part of a pattern of hotter and more frequent heatwaves around the world in 2024. They were responding to a statement by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that extreme unseasonal heat across Gaza had generated new fears of disease amid a lack of clean water and waste disposal.
As scorching heatwaves swept the Asia Pacific region and countries saw record-breaking temperatures, the IFRC warned that millions of people were at very high risk.
Climate change also made the downpours that caused serious floods in the UK and Ireland in autumn and winter 2023 about 20 per cent more intense, a WWA rapid analysis published in May found.
Just ahead of Heat Action Day 2024, the Climate Centre, World Weather Attribution and Climate Central released a report confirming that almost all the world’s population was affected by nearly 30 extreme-heat days that would probably not have occurred without climate change.
June
The American Red Cross selected the Juneteenth holiday on 19th of the month that commemorates the end of slavery in the US to unveil a mural painted specially by the Climate Centre for Heat Action Day as an ode to environmental and climate justice.
Climate change made the very extreme rainfall that caused destructive floods in Brazil’s southern state of Rio Grande do Sul in late April and early May twice as likely, a WWA study found.
New WMO forecasts showed an equal probability of either neutral conditions or a transition to La Niña in June–August 2024, rising to a 60 per cent chance of La Niña during July–September.
The Climate Centre launched an ArcGIS StoryMap highlighting the role of traditional knowledge in addressing climate change and extreme weather, covering 20 countries and combining science, cultural practices, data and art.
We jointly published a report showing that many Netherlands companies were taking steps to reduce their emissions, but actually adapting to climate change was “still uncharted territory for many [even though] that has a major impact on the future resilience of businesses.”
We reported on the activation by the Hellenic Red Cross of its simplified early action protocol for extreme heat, triggered by a National Observatory of Athens forecast of scorching temperatures across Greece.
Red Cross teams undertook anticipatory actions to help some 2,000 people, including bottled water, isotonic drinks, food and sun cream, and checks on homeless people, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses.
‘We’ll continue to work for Pablo’s vision for ensuring the most vulnerable not only survive but flourish despite climate change’
July
In a grievous blow to the Climate Centre and its team, our much-loved veteran innovation lead, Pablo Suarez (photo), died at Tufts Medical Center in the US city of Boston, where he was airlifted after suffering a sudden brain haemorrhage at his home. He was 53.
Aditya Bahadur said: “Pablo touched all our lives in incredible ways and his passing will leave a void that will be impossible to fill. We at the Climate Centre will continue to work towards realising Pablo’s vision of deploying innovative and effective approaches for ensuring the most vulnerable not only survive but flourish despite climate change.”
The Climate Centre represented the Red Cross Red Crescent at two important conferences in South America centred on climate action for cities and through social protection: the ICLEI World Congress and the Inter-American Development Bank regional policy dialogue.
Tropical Cyclone Freddy in February and March 2023 was recognized as the world’s longest-lived cyclone: it crossed the Indian Ocean from the coast of north-west Australia to Southern Africa, causing major human and economic losses in several countries, with Malawi by far the worst affected in terms of deaths and injuries, as well as Madagascar and Mozambique.
The Connecting Climate Minds project, in which the Climate Centre and the IFRC Psychosocial Centre are partners, published its agenda for research and action intended to advance understanding of how climate change affects mental health.
August
Susana Arroyo arrived on the Grenadian island of Carriacou a few days after Hurricane Beryl hit, and spoke to families about what they went through and what they were feeling about the future, with five more months of hurricane season still ahead.
In one the most compelling pieces of testimony of its kind all year, one householder, Beatriz, who had retired to Carriacou after 30 years working in the US, spoke of how the storm destroyed her house, her possessions and the memories of a lifetime: “I’m too sad to talk about what I’m going through, but I want people to know this: climate change has turned storms into monsters.”
The WWA team said climate change made the hot, dry, windy conditions that supercharged the catastrophic June wildfires in the Brazilian Pantanal – the world’s largest tropical wetland – 40 per cent more intense and up to five times more likely.
Another WWA study in August found climate change intensified the rainfall associated with Typhoon Gaemi in the western Pacific by as much as 14 per cent.
An IFRC photo story from Fiji illustrated how the Y-Adapt programme is serving as a beacon of hope in the fight against climate change, demonstrating youth empowerment and collective action.
After the Mozambique government rolled out its road map for achieving the UN-inspired Early Warnings for All target by the end of 2027, including new weather balloons, Liz Stephens explained these capture critical measurements on temperature, wind, pressure and humidity – data which then plays a critical role in the accuracy of forecast models.
September
The WMO said Africa was bearing an increasingly heavy burden from climate change and disproportionately high costs of adaptation: African countries are losing up to 5 per cent of GDP and many are forced to divert nearly 10 per cent of their budgets into unplanned expenditure to respond to worsening climate extremes.
Blistering heat linked to climate change is turning periods of very low rainfall in the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia into devastating droughts, WWA scientists concluded in a new study.
The Yemen Red Crescent said it was stepping up its flood response operation after August storms and floods that the UN locally described as unprecedented. The Climate Centre’s own analysis of Yemen’s climate, published earlier in the year, quoted several sources as saying the risk of heavy rainfall events and flooding is expected to increase with climate change.
Liz Stephens said new flooding in central Europe looked set to be the worst in the region since 2002. Lessons will have been learned from previous big European floods, she added, but forecasts for some locations are for flooding of unprecedented magnitude, and people were often surprised by the seemingly unimaginable consequences of such events.
Nepalese meteorologists confirmed the rainfall that has caused devastating flash floods and landslides in the Kathmandu valley where the capital city lies was the most intense for more than half a century.
‘I want people to know this: climate change has turned storms into monsters’
October
The Spanish Red Cross undertook a major operation to assist people affected by what were described as the deadliest floods in Spain’s recorded history. The National Society said many thousands of people were affected, and it was working around the clock to provide them with shelter and basic necessities.
The Climate Centre published a comprehensive position paper on the role of social protection in improving the ability of individuals and communities to address the socio-economic impacts of climate events.
The scale of devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in its rampage across the US south-east was described by the American Red Cross as “beyond words”. One of the deadliest storms to ever hit the US, it left hundreds of miles of destruction and countless lives changed forever, the National Society said.
The science behind the hurricane was quickly detailed by WWA scientists: initially turbocharged by a warm Gulf of Mexico, some 2°C above average and a factor made very much more likely by climate change, it intensified rapidly to a Category 4 storm only a few hours before landing on the west coast of Florida.
Two important meetings in October were detailed in blogs by Climate Centre team members. Juliane Schillinger wrote about the Berlin Climate and Security Conference, organized by the German Federal Foreign Office and Adelphi – a leading think tank on climate, environment and development, and Anka Stankovic covered the inception meeting of the Pathways2Resilience initiative – the flagship European project for climate adaptation.
The lethal late September floods in Nepal were caused by rainfall that was about 10 per cent more intense due to climate change, according to a rapid analysis by WWA scientists; it highlighted the urgent need to limit development in low-lying, riverside areas of cities.
The Climate Centre took part in the three-day 12th Global Dialogue Platform in Berlin, focused on ways to mainstream anticipatory action in complex contexts.
November
World Weather Attribution scientists looked back at the ten deadliest events since the devastating European heatwave of 2003 – the first extreme-weather event to be formally attributed to human-induced climate change and when the scientific field of attribution began.
The 34th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent ended with five major resolutions – including one on protecting people from the impacts of extreme climate and weather, together aimed at advancing humanitarian solutions to global challenges.
The Red Cross Red Crescent Working Group on Anticipatory Action and Health published a working paper to guide National Societies planning to engage in early action for disease outbreaks and epidemics; another report launched for COP 29 in Baku threw light on the health consequences of climate change in Burkina Faso, Malawi and Somalia – among the most vulnerable countries in the world.
At COP 29 itself, IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain outlined plans to mobilize 530 million euros through the Global Climate Resilience Platform for urban preparedness work on extreme heat, aiming to reach 100 million people in 100 cities by 2027.
As the UN climate talks drew to a close, he said the success of the new global deal on climate finance will be judged by whether increased funds reach the communities that need them most, and quickly. “Effective implementation is crucial [as is] delivery on what’s been promised. The agreement in Baku creates a pathway, but trust and action go hand in hand.”
December
The French Red Cross said the four priorities of its response to the “chaos and fear” Cyclone Chido unleashed on the Indian Ocean island territory of Mayotte as the year drew to a tragic close were water, food, hygiene materials and shelter.
Speaking of a race against time, Florent Vallée, National Director of Emergencies and Operations, said 30 tonnes of material were being transported via air bridge from the Red Cross PIROI Indian Ocean logistics base in Réunion, including drinking water, jerrycans, buckets and soap, as well as medical and response personnel.
Climate experts at the University of Reading pointed out that Indian Ocean temperatures were “incredibly high” in 2024 – probably helping boost Chido into a Category 4 storm, with wind speeds at its peak of more than 225kmh.
The highly respected South African practitioner and scientist Professor Debra Roberts – who was co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group II on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability for its sixth assessment cycle and who has been named one of the world’s 100 most influential people on climate policy – took over as the new chair of the Climate Centre board.
Aditya Bahadur said: “Professor Roberts brings a wealth of expertise on climate resilience and sustainable development. She has engaged intensively at the local level while wielding immense influence in global policy and research processes.”
Climate change intensified the six typhoons that struck the Philippines over about a month in October and November, making the conditions that fuelled them nearly twice as likely, WWA scientists said in their last such study of the year.
The fourth Red Cross Red Crescent youth and climate summit was held online, attracting more than 1,200 people who registered to take part from all over the world. Describing youth as “a remarkable force of resilience and action”, IFRC President Kate Forbes said the summit was a reminder of the crucial role played by young people in mitigating climate change.
After the UK was battered by three severe storms in as many weeks, Liz Stephens explained that although scientists are relatively less confident about how climate change is affecting the frequency and wind intensity of British storms, it had “been linked to an observed increase in winter rainfall in the UK, with this trend set to continue.”
(From top left) 2024 included bad news for the planet: confirmation from the WMO that 2023 was globally the warmest year on record “by a huge margin” while greenhouse gas in the atmosphere surged to a new record (Photo: NASA); the new IFRC climate action journey was rolled out at a training session in Naivasha, Kenya (Photo: Kenya Red Cross); Spanish Red Cross volunteers assist with the clear-up after the catastrophic flash floods that triggered one of the most lethal disasters in the country’s history (Photo: Spanish Red Cross); Pablo Suarez wows the audience at an Applied Improvisation session in Oxford (Photo: Barbara Tint).