Europe’s climate service said on Friday that 2024 was the hottest calendar year on record and the first in which average temperatures exceeded the key limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial times, raising the importance of efforts to protect people from dangerous impacts.
The confirmation – widely trailed before the announcement – came as wildfires made worse by drought conditions rampaged across Los Angeles, causing at least 10 deaths, large-scale evacuations and panic in Hollywood, the affluent centre of the US film industry.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said that all of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850. That individual year reached 1.6C above an estimate of pre-industrial temperatures.
Each year in the last decade is one of the ten warmest on record, C3S added – in line with what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently described as “a decade of deadly heat” and “climate breakdown – in real time”.
C3S director Carlo Buontempo emphasised that “the underlying physics is very clear”, with the world’s warmer air and seas leading to more frequent and intense extreme events – from heatwaves to heavier rainfall and more destructive storms.
As a result, he said, “our traditional system to cope with and respond to extreme climate events is being tested to the limits. This is why adaptation is no longer an option – but a necessity.”
On the edge of 1.5C
Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs Copernicus, said the global temperature over the past two years – averaging 1.54C – had surpassed the internationally agreed aim of keeping warming to 1.5C, as set out in the 2015 Paris climate pact.
“We are now teetering on the edge of passing the 1.5C level defined in the Paris Agreement,” she said – although C3S emphasised that does not mean the flagship goal has been lost as it refers to an average over a period of at least 20 years.
“These high global temperatures, coupled with record global atmospheric water vapour levels in 2024, meant unprecedented heatwaves and heavy rainfall events, causing misery for millions of people,” Burgess added.
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Last month, researchers collaborating with the World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central projects said climate change had intensified 26 of the 29 extreme weather events they studied during 2024.
Those disasters killed at least 3,700 people and displaced millions – but were only a small sample of what was experienced on the frontlines of a hotter world. They included severe floods in eastern Spain, hurricanes in the US, drought in South America’s Amazon rainforest, and flooding across West and Central Africa.
‘Tested to the limits’
Government efforts to adapt to climate extremes – through measures such as installing alerting systems, preparing evacuation centres, strengthening homes and flood barriers, and protecting ecosystems – have lagged behind the gathering speed of impacts, leading to growing economic damage.
On Thursday, Munich Re, the world’s largest insurer, said hurricanes, storms, floods and other natural disasters caused an estimated $140 billion in insured losses in 2024, up from 2023 and one of the costliest years on record.
“We are facing very new climate challenges that our society is not prepared for,” C3S head Buontempo told a press briefing in response to a question from Climate Home. “The best we can do is build on the evidence we have and develop services and early warning systems that can deliver that protection and can improve our well-being effectively.”
He added that the tools, data and resources exist to make this happen, even though “it is a monumental challenge for society and… not easily implemented”.
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All-time high for greenhouse gases
C3S said the six datasets it had compiled showed that the global average temperature in 2024 was 15.1C, overtaking 2023 – the previous warmest year – by 0.12C. Last year was also the warmest on record for all continents except Antarctica and Australasia, and registered the highest global average temperature in a single day (on July 22 at 17.16C) as well as the highest annual average sea surface temperature (20.87°C).
While 2024 was characterised by an El Niño weather pattern – caused by warming of the Pacific waters – which contributed to higher global temperatures, the scientists laid most of the blame on the increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere due to human activities.
In 2024, greenhouse gases saw their highest annual levels ever recorded in the atmosphere, with carbon dioxide concentrations reaching 422 ppm (parts per million) – 2.9 ppm higher than in 2023 – and methane increasing too.
Scientists stressed the need for stepped-up global efforts to cut those emissions – while also urging more adaptation measures to keep people safer from the consequences the world is already struggling with.
Mauro Facchini, head of Earth observation at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space, said some actions to adapt to a hotter planet are already underway through urban planning or managing land better to avoid flooding casualties, but bigger changes are needed.
“In the short-term we know that something is happening, and we have to adapt if we want to reduce the impacts on our daily lives,” he added.
(Reporting by Megan Rowling; editing by Sebastian Rodriguez)
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Record-hot 2024 shows world must adapt to extremes, says EU climate service
A first set of biodiversity plans filed by countries to reverse nature loss are “insufficient” to meet this decade’s global targets, including a landmark goal to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and marine ecosystems by 2030, a landmark UN report warned on Thursday.
The State of Biodiversity Action, put together by a panel of technical experts for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), was released in Yerevan, ahead of the COP17 nature talks starting on Monday in the Armenian capital.
Over the next two weeks, governments will for the first time take stock of progress towards the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreed in 2022 – a set of 23 targets also known as the “Paris Agreement for nature” – and will decide on policy guidelines for ramping up ambition before the 2030 deadline. The UN report will be the main basis for these negotiations.
At a press conference in Armenia, UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted that, while there has been some progress on the GBF, the “bad news” is that less than half of country plans are on track to meet its targets.
If current commitments are met by the end of the decade, only 26% of land ecosystems and 12% of marine ecosystems will be protected – falling “real short” of the 30% target agreed in Montreal in 2022, Guterres said. “The war on nature has not yet ended,” he added.
UN Environment chief Inger Andersen said the report “sets the tone for the focus, ambition and urgent action we need to deliver” in Armenia, including by reducing subsidies that harm nature and mobilising new finance for biodiversity. “All leaders and all negotiators must respond to these findings,” she emphasised.
Andersen added that climate change amplifies threats to biodiversity, which makes protection all the more important as global warming is now almost certain to rise above a key threshold. “Exceedence of 1.5C increases the likelihood of forest diebacks, phenological shifts, warming oceans that become more inhospitable to species, irreversible tipping points and so much more,” she said.
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Progress on land but ocean lags behind
The report shows that if countries meet all the biodiversity targets in their plans, this would protect about 27% of the world’s land and sea by 2030, a fivefold increase in the span of ten years.
Progress has been uneven, with most conservation efforts focused on terrestrial ecosystems. The report suggests that currently about 19% of land ecosystems are protected, up two percentage points from 2020, which UN authorities welcomed but said is not a fast enough pace.
However, the real gap is at sea, where only about 10% of the global ocean has some sort of protection. Coastal areas under national jurisdiction have done better, as currently 23% of this marine territory is protected, but the report shows most of the deep ocean is not.
Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, an advocacy group, said the new High Seas Treaty – which entered into force this year and will allow for the creation of Marine Protected Areas in the deep ocean – represents an opportunity, as only about 1.5% is under protection so far.
A group of environmental NGOs including WWF and Bloomberg Philanthropies has issued a call for governments to scale up ocean conservation and to designate $16 billion annually for marine protection measures, up from $1.8bn now.
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Some countries did not set a conservation target at all for both land and sea, the report says, blaming technical challenges like how to account for overlapping protected areas, difficulty recognising protections for private land and land-accounting methodologies changing over time.
A separate report by Campaign for Nature suggests that the 30×30 goal could still be met with “increased ambition and commitment”, and says that around 50 countries have already protected about 30% of their land.
A group of environmental NGOs has warned that, beyond the 30% headline figure, protected areas need to be “high integrity” and recognise the stewardship of local communities and Indigenous peoples.
Developing countries call for finance
Rich countries will arrive at COP17 with shrinking aid budgets and geopolitical preoccupations – yet they will likely hear the same plea they’ve heard for the past few years: stepping up commitments will require finance.
A submission by African countries in August said the “implementation gap” has at its core a shortfall in the provision of funds, and that bridging it will require predictable and accessible finance.
Pacific island nations launched a similar call, arguing there is “a treaty obligation” that developing countries, including themselves, will effectively implement commitments depending on the finance and technology made available by developed nations.
To close this gap, the EU made a proposal at preliminary talks in Nairobi in August to expand the base of donors so that richer developing countries could voluntarily assume donor responsibilities. Saudi Arabia and Qatar rejected the idea, while China said this should not weaken the responsibility of developed nations.
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So far, wealthy governments have missed a target to provide $20bn per year in international public finance for nature protection by 2025, reaching only about $16bn per year from 2023 to 2025, according to an OECD report. By 2030, the GBF aims for developed countries to directly transfer $30bn per year, and mobilise $200bn from all sources.
The UN report released on Thursday shows even slower progress in redirecting harmful subsidies such as those which encourage the overuse of fertilisers and the production and consumption of new fossil fuels, and below-market fees that encourage overfishing. UN Environment estimates that for every dollar spent protecting nature, $30 goes on destroying it.
UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker told journalists in Yerevan that “if you hear there is no finance, please do not believe it” because economies are continuing to grow. “It is being spent on activities that harm the economy rather than those that work with nature and sustain life on this planet,” she said.
Guterres said developed countries tend to say they are grappling with budget constraints due to increased defence expenditure, which “in my view does not justify a reduction” in international aid. He added that existing resources can be multiplied if they are used to mobilise private capital.
Campaigners, companies and the Armenian government want to shift the needle on this situation at COP17 by highlighting how positive subsidies help restore biodiversity. They will launch a flagship call to action that will be taken forward by countries and groups working to reform damaging incentives.
Global review: the main act
The Global Review of Collective Progress – a bit like the Global Stocktake for climate action – is set to be the most important outcome from COP17, and it will be the first time this process unfolds at the biodiversity talks. The actions decided in Yerevan will respond to the gaps outlined in the State of Biodiversity Action report and determine whether countries can turn the tide of biodiversity loss this decade.
Overall, the report shows that while countries have taken action to address all 23 targets in the GBF, none “present a fully positive picture”. A target to strengthen the resilience of ecosystems to climate impacts is the only one with high relative progress, the report says, as government have already made effective interventions that show “a positive trend”.
The report assessed each country’s national targets, which define their contribution to the global goals, as well as their separate National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) outlining how they will achieve the national targets.
But it does not paint a complete picture, since at the cut-off date, only 89 NBSAPs and national targets from 162 countries had been submitted, leaving out a couple of dozen plans that arrived late. Pacific island nations said this might undercount commitments.
Many of those lacking an NBSAP are biodiversity-rich developing countries, which say they need financial and technical support to fully develop these plans. Some large nations pending an NBSAP include South Africa, Bolivia and Russia.
Since the GBF was agreed in 2022, governments have mostly focused on developing their biodiversity targets and plans, while the lion’s share of implementation is expected to happen towards the end of the decade, according to UN biodiversity chief Schomaker.
But O’Donnell said “accelerated political ambition” is still needed to improve commitments and translate them into effective protection on the ground or at sea.
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Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
Countries will meet in Armenia this month to carry out the first global review of progress towards meeting key nature targets by 2030.
These targets – and the wider ambition to halt and reverse biodiversity loss around the world – were agreed in the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022.
But the ambitions will not be achieved in time for the 2030 deadline unless action “accelerates rapidly”, a key UN report found.
It noted that nations are falling short on 22 of 23 nature targets, which focus on restoring ecosystems, increasing nature finance and reducing harmful subsidies.
This report and other findings will inform the global progress review taking place at the COP17 biodiversity summit in Armenia over 19-30 October.
The sections below summarise the report’s findings on where progress has – and has not – been made on each of the 23 targets.
They also rank the extent to which countries have addressed elements of each target on a national basis. Click on each target for more information. Key terms are defined throughout each section and in a glossary below.
The post COP17: Tracking progress towards the UN’s 2030 nature targets appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/nature-targets-2030-progress/
The amount of finance for nature delivered to date “falls far short” of what is needed to meet the UN’s global goals, according to a report released ahead of the COP17 biodiversity summit.
The global stocktaking report, prepared by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD) ahead of this month’s summit in Armenia, finds that developed nations are failing to close the $200bn “biodiversity finance gap”.
Initiatives designed to support this goal are also stumbling, with a special “framework” fund for biodiversity receiving less than $140m from developed countries in the past two years and the “landmark” Cali Fund receiving only $6,000 from private companies.
The availability of finance – or lack thereof – is likely to be a key point of contention in negotiations at COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia, which begin on 19 October.
Target for 2025 ‘not achieved’
At COP15 in 2022, 196 countries agreed to an ambitious global deal to reverse bi