Global warming: Earth crosses historic milestone of +1.5°C this year

© Chris LeBoutillier/Unsplash

For the first time in its history, the Earth will cross a critical threshold in 2024, shattering the cardinal objective set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to preserve our planet. The observation of the European Copernicus service (C3S) is clear: 2024 will mark a dramatic turning point in the history of the climate. Our planet will exceed the threshold of +1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era, a limit that international agreements were trying to avoid at all costs. The point of no return has never been so close.

When the thermometer goes crazy, science is alarmed

Temperature readings are drawing a dizzying curve. October 2023 had already sounded like a warning with a rise of 1.65°C, foreshadowing what awaited us. The explanation lies in our CO2 emissions, which have reached a record level of 420 parts per million (ppm) – sor a 50% increase since the beginning of industrialization.

This accumulation of greenhouse gases acts like an ever-thickening blanket around our planet, trapping heat and disrupting age-old climate mechanisms. For Samantha Burgess, from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), this new level should electrify the debates of the next COP29, while current measures are clearly insufficient in the face of the scale of the challenge. ” This new global temperature record underlines the urgency of increasing global efforts to combat climate change, in the run-up to COP29 “ she explains– she.

Evolution of global temperature anomalies since 1940 compared to the pre-industrial period (1850-1900). © Copernicus Climate Change Service

L& #8217;Trump effect: a brake on climate ambitions

The election of Donald Trump to the American presidency, while delighting the tech sector, risks profoundly upsetting the environmental situation on a global scale. The new tenant of the White House displays a program diametrically opposed to efforts to combat global warming: planned withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, dismantling of environmental regulations, and above all, massive relaunch of the exploitation of fossil fuels.

This about-face directly threatens the legacy of the Biden-Harris administration, which had initiated the most ambitious climate policies in American history through the Inflation Reduction Act. Financing for renewable energy and emissions reduction measures, pillars of this historic law, are now in the hot seat. A turnaround that is all the more worrying given that the United States, the world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, plays a sadly central role in climate change.

Cascading consequences on our daily lives

The impacts of this accelerated warming are already manifesting themselves tangibly in our lives. Heat waves are intensifying and multiplying, endangering the most vulnerable populations. Extreme weather events are unleashed: violent fires, devastating floods, prolonged droughts, storms and hurricanes sowing chaos in their wake. These phenomena will ultimately lead to huge climate migrations of vulnerable people, which will catalyse social and political tensions in the countries that will host them.

Many animal and plant species are failing to adapt to the rapidity of these changes and are now threatened with extinction. Forests, corals, wetlands and other ecosystems are also being weakened, leading to a loss of essential ecosystem services (climate regulation, water purification, etc.).

Agriculture is being hit hard by these upheavals: yields are declining, harvests are becoming increasingly uncertain and erratic, leading to soaring food prices, thereby undermining global food security. Climate scientists are clear: every additional fraction of a degree amplifies these disruptions. The goal of net zero emissions is therefore more urgent than ever – every tonne of CO2 avoided counts towards limiting the scale of these upheavals.

This historic overshoot of 1.5°C in 2024 could be only the prelude to a new climate regime. Even if this crossing remains for the moment punctual, it prefigures what could become our new normality in the years to come, in an international political context not very conducive to the radical actions that the climate emergency nevertheless demands.

• In 2024, the Earth will exceed the critical threshold of +1.5°C of warming compared to the pre-industrial era, a threshold that the Paris Agreement aimed to avoid.
• Trump’s election and his pro-fossil fuel policies risk slowing down climate efforts, making the fight against climate change even more difficult.
• This accelerated warming, amplified by record CO2 emissions, is already causing heat waves, natural disasters and seriously threatening global food security.

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