Although warming around the world spiked last year, the United Nations’ lead climate agency says there is still time to act.
Although warming around the world spiked last year, the United Nations’ lead climate agency says there is still time to act.
By Nick O’Malley
March 19, 2025 — 10.48am
Last year was the hottest recorded year in history at 1.55 degrees above the pre-industrial period; the past 10 years are the 10 hottest in history, and greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are at their highest levels in 800,000 years, the World Meteorological Organisation has reported.
The report by the WMO, which serves as the United Nations’ lead agency on climate and weather, finds that the world’s oceans were hotter in 2024 than any other year on record and that each of the past eight years had set a new record for ocean heat. The rate of ocean warming is now twice as fast as it was before 2005.
This confirms an analysis published over recent months from other international climate observation organisations.
Sea levels reached a record high in 2024, and the rate of sea level rise has doubled since satellite measurements began, the WMO analysis shows, while the largest glacier loss on record occurred over the years 2022 to 2024.
2024 was the first year during which the world passed the 1.5 degrees limit set out by world governments in the Paris Accord, which only considers the target breached when average temperatures have been above that level for 20 years.
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“While a single year above 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming does not indicate that the long-term temperature goals of the Paris Agreement are out of reach, it is a wake-up call that we are increasing the risks to our lives, economies and to the planet,” the organisation’s secretary-general, Andrea Celeste Saulo, said.
“Our planet is issuing more distress signals – but this report shows that limiting long-term global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is still possible. Leaders must step up to make it happen – seizing the benefits of cheap, clean renewables for their people and economies – with new national climate plans due this year,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
The current long-term average level of human-induced global warming is estimated at 1.34–1.41°C above the 1850–1900 baseline.
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The extreme temperatures caused massive disruption around the world.
“The frozen parts of Earth’s surface, known as the cryosphere, are melting at an alarming rate: glaciers continue to retreat, and Antarctic sea ice reached its second-lowest extent ever recorded,” said Celeste Saulo.
“Meanwhile, extreme weather continues to have devastating consequences around the world.”
Tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and other hazards in 2024 led to the highest number of new displacements recorded for the past 16 years, contributed to worsening food crises, and caused massive economic losses.
There were at least 151 “unprecedented” extreme weather events recorded in 2024, and the year saw 824,000 people around the world displaced by such events, the highest number since 2008.
The record global temperatures seen in 2023 and broken in 2024 were mainly due to the ongoing rise in greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with a shift from a cooling La Nina to a warming El Nino event, says the report.
Other factors accelerating the warming may include changes in the solar cycle, a massive volcanic eruption and a decrease in airborne pollution that may have been “masking” warming.
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Nick O’Malley is National Environment and Climate Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is also a senior writer and a former US correspondent.Connect via email.
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