‘Cascading impacts from mountain peaks to ocean depths, on communities, economies, the environment’
By the Climate Centre
The impacts of climate change gripped the world in 2024, with “cascading impacts from mountain peaks to ocean depths and on communities, economies and the environment,” the World Meteorological Organization said yesterday.
The year 2024 is set to be the warmest on record, capping a decade of unprecedented heat fuelled by human activities, according to the WMO statement Monday ahead of the publication of consolidated global temperature data for the year later this month and its full State of the Global Climate 2024 report in March.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said: “Every fraction of a degree of warming matters, and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks …
“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.”
A new report last week from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central, meanwhile, found that climate change intensified all but three of the 29 extreme events studied by the scientific partnership that includes the Climate Centre.
The report – When Risks Become Reality: Extreme Weather in 2024 – said that climate change added 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, harming human health and ecosystems.
Friederike Otto, WWA lead and Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at Imperial College London, said: “We do have the knowledge and technology to move away from fossil fuels, towards renewable energies, lower demand and halt deforestation.
“We need to implement these and not get distracted by technologies like carbon dioxide removal, they will not work without doing everything else first. The solutions have been in front of us for years.
“In 2025, every country needs to step up efforts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy and prepare for extreme weather.”
‘Another devastating year of extreme weather has shown we are not well prepared
for life at 1.5°C of warming’
The World Meteorological Organization and UNESCO are leading work on the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025, the WMO statement notes, “aiming to raise awareness about the vital role glaciers, snow, and ice play in the climate system and hydrological cycle, as well as the far-reaching impacts of rapid glacial melt.”
While there have been occasional short-term glacier advances at different times, they have been “retreating with accelerated speed more recently as the world warms rapidly”.
Dramatic general changes in the Arctic, including an increase in wildfires, the greening of the tundra and an increase in winter precipitation, were documented in the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2024 Arctic Report Card, published earlier this month.
Climate Centre Director of Programmes Julie Arrighi adds: “Another devastating year of extreme weather has shown that we are not well prepared for life at 1.5°C of warming.
“Studies continue to show the need to enhance preparedness for extreme weather to reduce loss of life and damages. In 2025, it’s crucial that every country accelerate efforts to adapt to climate change.”
This WMO 2025 calendar competition winner shows the retreating snow-line in the Swiss Alps; the IPCC says in a fact-sheet based on its sixth assessment report that a reduction of glacier ice in European Alpine regions is projected “with high confidence”. (Photo: Melanie Biausque)