Did humanity just break the Paris climate agreement?
global temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels for 12 consecutive months.
From February 2023 to January 2024, average temperatures were 1.52 degrees Celsius — converted, the equivalent of 2.73 degrees Fahrenheit — warmer than between 1850 and 1900. That's when humans started warming the planet by burning fossil fuels and pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
This came as the planet experienced its hottest January on record, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
«It is a significant milestone,» said Matt Patterson, a postdoctoral researcher in climate physics at the University of Oxford.
The climate-warming El Nino phenomenon was partly behind the spike, and temperatures are expected to dip slightly below 1.5 C once it ends in the next few months. Still, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are the main culprit for the bulk of the warming.
Did the world break the Paris Agreement?
Not quite, but it's getting close.
In 2015, at the Paris UN climate conference, almost every country present agreed to limit the average global temperature increase to well below 2 C, and to aim for a maximum 1.5 C temperature rise, in what became known as the Paris Agreement.
The 1.5 C limit was chosen as a defense line in avoiding the most extreme and irreversible effects of climate change. Exceeding it threatens serious harm to planetary systems, human populations, and the environment as storms, heat waves and droughts become more extreme.
