New Delhi: As we get set to welcome the new year, the outgoing year reminds us of our responsibility towards this planet as this year will go down in history as the warmest on record, mainly due to human activities.
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the year 2024 caps a decade of unprecedented heat for which our lifestyles are to be blamed. The greenhouse gases released by human activities have increased the pace of pace of climate change which would be disastrous for the existence of humans if the way we live does not change,
“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 Secretary-General António Guterres in his message for the New Year.
“This is climate breakdown — in real time. We must exit this road to ruin — and we have no time to lose,” he emphasised.
Record-breaking rainfalls were documented as well as catastrophic flooding, scorching heat waves with temperatures exceeding 50°C, and devastating wildfires.
The WMO found that climate change added 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, harming human health and ecosystems in their report When Risks Become Reality: Extreme Weather.
Climate change also intensified 26 of the 29 weather events studied by World Weather Attribution that killed at least 3700 people and displaced millions.
Celeste Saulo, the WMO Secretary-General, described the year as a sobering wake-up call.
“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,” she stated.
“Every fraction of a degree of warming matters, and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks,” she underscored.
However, 2024 also saw notable advancements with the adoption of the Pact for the Future – a landmark agreement to promote disarmament, financial reform, gender equality, and ethical technological innovation.
The COP29 UN climate conference also recently discussed ways to increase finance for poor countries to support them in coping with the impacts of extreme weather, though these countries find that the financial commitments fall far short of what is required to fight and adapt to the already happening climate change.
Though it is manily the developed nations that are manly responsible for emission of greenhouse gases, but it is the developing countriethat are being hit the hardest by extreme weather.
The organisation will publish the consolidated global temperature figure for 2024 in January and its full State of the Global Climate 2024 report in March 2025.
–INDIA NEWS STREAM