Human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2024 continued to drive global warming to record levels.
This is the stark picture that emerges in the third edition of the “Indicators of Global Climate Change” (IGCC) report, published in Earth System Science Data.
IGCC tracks changes in the climate system between Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) science reports.
In doing so, the IGCC fills the gap between the IPCC’s sixth assessment (AR6) in 2021 and the seventh assessment, expected in 2028.
Following IPCC methods, this year’s assessment brings together a team of over 60 international scientists, including former IPCC authors and curators of vital global datasets.
As in previous years, it is accompanied by a user-friendly data dashboard focusing on the main policy-relevant climate indicators, including GHG emissions, human-caused warming, the rate of temperature change and the remaining global carbon budget.
Below, we explain this year’s findings, highlighting the role that humans are playing in some of the fundamental changes the global climate has seen in recent years.
(For previous IGCC reports, see Carbon Brief’s detailed coverage in 2023 and 2024.)
An ‘unexceptional’ record high
Last year likely saw global average surface temperatures hit at least 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. This aligns with other major assessments of the Earth’s climate.
Our best estimate is a rise of 1.52C (with a range of 1.39-1.65C), of which human activity contributed around 1.36C. The rest is the result of natural variability in the climate system, which also plays a role in shaping global temperatures from one year to the next.
Our estimate of 1.52C differs slightly from the 1.55C given by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) state of the global climate 2024 report, published earlier this year. This is because they make slightly different selections on which of the available global land and ocean temperature datasets to include. (The warming estimate has varied by similar amounts in past years and future work will aim to harmonise the approaches.)
The height of 2024’s temperatures, while unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years, is not surprising. Given the high level of human-induced warming, we might currently expect to see annual temperatures above 1.5C on average one year in six.
However, with 2024 following an El Niño year, waters in the North Atlantic were warmer than average. These conditions raise this likelihood to an expectation that 1.5C is surpassed every other year.
From now on, we should regard 2024’s observed temperatures as unexceptional. Temperature records will continue to be broken as human-caused temperature rise also increases.
Longer-term temperature change
Despite observed global temperatures likely rising by more than 1.5C in 2024, this does not equate to a breach of the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal, which refers to long-term temperature change caused by human activity.
IGCC also looks at how temperatures are changing over the most recent decade, in line with IPCC assessments.
Over 2015-24, global average temperatures were 1.24C higher than pre-industrial levels. Of this, 1.22C was caused by human activity. So, essentially, all the global warming seen over the past decade was caused by humans.
Observed global average temperatures over 2015-24 were also 0.31C warmer than the previous decade (2005-14). This is unsurprising given the high rates of human-caused warming over the same period, reaching a best estimate of 0.27C per decade.
This rate of warming is large and unprecedented. Over land, where people live, temperatures are rising even faster than the global average, leading to record extreme temperatures.
But every fraction of a degree matters, increasing climate impacts and loss and damage that is already affecting billions of people.
Driven by emissions
Undoubtedly, these changes are being caused by GHG emissions remaining at an all-time high.
Over the last decade, human activities have released, on average, the equivalent of around 53bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. (The figure of 53bn tonnes expresses the total warming effect of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, using CO2 as a reference point.)
Emissions have shown no sign of the peak by 2025 and rapid decline to net-zero required to limit global warming to 1.5C with no or limited “overshoot”.
Most of these emissions were from fossil fuels and industry. There are signs that energy use and emissions are rising due to air conditioning use during summer heatwaves. Last year also saw high levels of emissions from tropical deforestation due to forest fires, partly related to dry conditions caused by El Niño.
Notably, emissions from international aviation – the sector with the steepest drop in emissions during the Covid-19 pandemic – returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, alongside the other major GHGs of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), is continuing to build up to record levels. Their concentrations have increased by 3.1, 3.4 and 1.7%, respectively, since the 2019 values reported in the last IPCC assessment.
At the same time, aerosol emissions, which have a cooling effect, are continuing to fall as a result of important efforts to tackle air pollution. This is currently adding to the rate of GHG warming.
Notably, cutting CH4 emissions, which are also short-lived in the atmosphere, could offset this rise. But, again, there is no real sign of a fall – despite major initiatives such as the Global Methane Pledge.
The effect of all human drivers of climate change on the Earth’s energy balance is measured as “radiative forcing”. Our estimate of this radiative forcing in 2024 is 2.97 Watts per square metre (W/m2), 9% above the value recorded in 2019 that was quoted in the last IPCC assessment.
This is shown in the figure below, which illustrates the percentage change in an array of climate indicators since the data update given in the last IPCC climate science report.
Continued emissions and rising temperatures are meanwhile rapidly eating into the remaining carbon budget, the total amount of CO2 that can be emitted if global warming is to be kept below 1.5C.
Our central estimate of the remaining carbon budget from the start of 2025 is 130bn tonnes of CO2.
This has fallen by almost three-quarters since the start of 2020. It would be exhausted in a little more than three years of global emissions, at current levels.
However, given the uncertainties involved in calculating the remaining carbon budget, the actual value could lie between 30 and 320bn tonnes, meaning that it could also be exhausted sooner – or later than expected.
Beyond global temperatures
Our assessment also shows how surplus heat is accumulating in the Earth’s system at an accelerating rate, becoming increasingly out of balance and driving changes around the world.
The data and their changes are displayed on a dedicated Climate Change Tracker platform, shown below.
The radiative forcing of 2.97 W/m2 adds heat to the climate system. As the world warms in response, much of this excess heat radiates to space, until a new balance is restored. The residual level of heating is termed the Earth’s “energy imbalance” and is an indication of how far out of balance the climate system is and the warming still to come.
This residual rate of heat entering the Earth system has now approximately doubled from levels seen in the 1970s and 1980s, to around 1W/m2 on average during the period 2012-24.
Although the ocean is storing an estimated 91% of this excess heat, mitigating some of the warming we would otherwise see at the Earth’s surface, it brings other impacts, including sea level rise and marine heatwaves.
Global average sea level rise, from both the melting of ice sheets and thermal expansion due to deep ocean warming, is included in the IGCC assessment for the first time.
We find that it has increased by around 26mm over the last six years (2019-24), more than double the long-term rate. This is the indicator that shows the clearest evidence of an acceleration.
Sea level rise is making storm surges more damaging and causing more coastal erosion, having the greatest impact on low-lying coastal areas. The 2019 IPCC special report on the oceans and cryosphere estimated that more than one billion people would be living in such low-lying coastal zones by 2050.
Multiple indicators
Overall, our indicators provide multiple lines of evidence all pointing in the same direction to provide a clear and consistent – but unsurprising and worsening – picture of the climate system.
It is also now inevitable that global temperatures will reach 1.5C of long-term warming in the next few years unless society takes drastic, transformative action – both in cutting GHG emissions and stopping deforestation.
Every year of delay brings reaching 1.5C – or even higher temperatures – closer.
This year, countries are unveiling new “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), the national climate commitments aimed at collectively reducing GHG emissions and tackling climate change in line with the Paris Agreement.
While the plans put forward so far represent a step in the right direction, they still fall far short of what is needed to significantly reduce, let alone stop, the rate of warming.
At the same time, evidence-based decision-making relies on international expertise, collaboration and global datasets.
Our annual update relies on data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and input from many of their highly respected scientists. It is this type of collaboration that allows scientists to generate well-calibrated global datasets that can be used to produce trusted data on changes in the Earth system.
It would not be possible to maintain the consistent long-term datasets employed in our study if their work is interrupted.
At a time when the planet is changing at the fastest rate since records began, we are at risk of failing to track key indicators – such as greenhouse gas concentrations or deep ocean temperatures – and losing core expertise that is vital for understanding the data.
The post Guest post: Why 2024’s global temperatures were unprecedented, but not surprising appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: Why 2024’s global temperatures were unprecedented, but not surprising
Governments at the COP17 nature summit in Armenia agreed on Saturday to scale up their policies to protect the planet’s shrinking biodiversity, and for the first time invited large emerging economies like China and Gulf states to take on donor responsibilities to help fund those efforts.
For the past two weeks, countries held talks in Yerevan under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to outline a plan to ramp up currently “insufficient” policies to conserve land and marine ecosystems. A recent UN progress report found the world is off track to meet 22 out of 23 global targets aimed at reversing species loss and protecting 30% of land and seas by 2030.
While a response plan, called the “Global Review of Collective Progress”, was expected to be the main outcome of COP17, negotiations struggled to advance amid a deadlock over the controversial subject of how to finance the boost in conservation measures needed.
After an all-night session on Friday, delegates agreed to invite developing countries to voluntarily signal their interest in assuming donor funding obligations alongside developed nations. Negotiators repeatedly warned that any stronger provisions on expanding the donor base would collapse the deal.
COP president: Results beat expectations
An exhausted COP17 president Hambardzum Matevosyan, Armenia’s environment minister, told journalists in the early hours of Saturday that “we’ve achieved more than we could’ve expected” given the “importance” of the decisions being taken.
“It was 100% possible that those items did not made it through. 100% possible,” he said, adding that the conference had made progress on “all the most important items”.
Speaking at the closing plenary, the group of Pacific Islands said that, while the summit had achieved “great outcomes”, delegates are also departing Yerevan “with realities not reflected in the official text”, such as the low replenishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a key funder of nature projects.
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Some observers also said the deal did not go far enough. Steven Guilbeault, a former Canadian environment minister who helped broker the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), said the Yerevan package of action is “an important step forward”, but still “falls short of what is needed to meet our 2030 commitments”.
An Lambrechts, biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International, said COP17 had kept things moving forward and set well-intentioned promises, but added that these “won’t remove major roadblocks to implementation” such as insufficient finance and debt constraints in developing countries.
WWF chief conservation officer Daudi Sumba noted that financial issues were not fully resolved. Despite the deal in Yerevan, “I fear finance will remain the key issue that continues to haunt the UN biodiversity summits,” he said in a statement.
‘Yerevan Pathway’ tackles nature plans and subsidies
In the lead-up to the summit, the UN assessment report showed countries are falling short on virtually all targets in the GBF, the 2022 global deal often referred to as the ‘Paris Agreement for nature’.
They include a landmark target to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and sea by 2030. If countries all stick to their current national goals, about 26% of land would be protected and only about 12% of marine ecosystems would be under conservation measures.
The main COP17 decision – named the Yerevan Pathway by the presidency – calls for countries to revise their biodiversity plans, subject to available funding, with a particular focus on addressing the gap in coverage of “marine, coastal and inland water ecosystems”.
It also urges the over 60 countries who have not submitted a biodiversity plan yet to finalise them “as soon as possible” and taking into account the gaps identified by the UN progress report.
Countries also agreed to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss by “accelerating” the reduction of subsidies for activities that damage nature. Subsidy reform, covered by Target 18 of the GBF, is where countries have made the least progress so far, according to the assessment report.
Jill Hepp, director of nature and marine policy and incentives at green group Conservation International, said singling out subsidies in the Yerevan Pathway “gives a strong signal” that closing the gap for biodiversity action requires “more urgent efforts to reform harmful incentives and scale up positive incentives”.
“Timid” steps to expand base of donors
Having failed to meet a target to channel $20 billion for biodiversity conservation by 2025 and faced with shrinking aid budgets, the EU pushed a proposal to expand the list of which countries count as donors, so that wealthy emerging economies like China and Saudi Arabia could also voluntarily contribute. The group of Arab nations strongly opposed this.
During the talks, Irish minister of state for nature, Christopher O’Sullivan, whose country holds the EU presidency, said the bloc wanted the world’s “new realities” to be reflected in the donor list.
Negotiations remained gridlocked for most of the two-week talks, until a last-day compromise was struck to invite developing countries that may want donor status “to indicate to the [Convention on Biological Diversity] secretariat their interest in being included in the corresponding list”.
Countries also asked the secretariat to send an invitation to emerging economies wanting donor status at each subsequent COP, and requested a technical report on “the implications of inclusion in the list” for emerging economies.
Swiss lead negotiator Gabriela Blatter said during one of the sessions that her country had expected greater steps towards expanding the base of contributing countries, but added that “if we’re mutually unhappy, it’s probably the closest we can get on these very delicate political compromises”. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, also noted their dissatisfaction but said it had expected “a lot less”.
The fragile deal was approved in a package of decisions together with the Global Review, after some delegations including Brazil and China appealed to the plenary not to make further changes to the text at the risk of collapsing the whole agreement.
In a statement delivered to the closing plenary, the EU said the finance outcome had delivered “timid” progress towards fully broadening the base of donors.
Cali Fund still not operational
Adopted two years ago at COP16, the Cali Fund was seen by some observers as a way to channel private-sector finance into biodiversity conservation, as governments struggle to find public funds. But it is still struggling to get up on its feet.
The fund allows big corporations to access certificates for the use of genetic material found in biodiversity in return for a financial contribution, which experts estimate has the potential to raise up to $6.9bn for biodiversity. While voluntary, companies are encouraged to pay 1% of their profits or 0.1% of revenue into the fund.
But since its creation, the fund has received little more than $10,000, which Guilbeault argued is because the rules for disbursements to local communities and the operation of the fund had yet to be fleshed out. This was due to happen at COP17.
Yet, while the final decision on the fund laid out some of the rules – including how companies can earn “Cali Fund certificates” – some key technical details were left to the next COP in 2028 in Ecuador. This includes the issue of whether companies can pay a lower rate if they use genetic data for only a small portion of their products.
“By punting essential decisions to two years from now, parties have all but ensured the fund remains empty until then,” said Pakhi Das, a public policy advisor at NGO Plant-for-the-Planet.
The post COP17 delivers fragile deal to boost conservation and funding for nature appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP17 delivers fragile deal to boost conservation and funding for nature
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
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Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scient