The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has confirmed that the penultimate month of 2024 has become the second warmest November ever documented. The organization anticipates that it is “practically certain” that this will be the first calendar year to achieve an increase in global temperature greater than 1.5°C, compared to the pre-industrial era.
The terrestrial thermal record reached an average of 14.10°C last November, with an increase of 1.62°C above the average level certified between 1850 and 1900. The planet warmed 0.14°C compared to the same interval in 2023. The second to last month of this year was positioned as the sixteenth of 17 consecutive periods in which atmospheric heat exceeded reference values.
Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of C3S, said: “We can now confirm with almost complete certainty that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first calendar year with a temperature above 1.5°C. [en relación con el época anterior a la Revolución Industrial]”. He clarifies that this does not represent a breach of the Paris Agreement. The threshold established in the international treaty refers to a rise in global temperature sustained for decades. Despite this, Burgess adds that “it is more urgent than ever to adopt ambitious climate measures.”
He report shows that abnormal heat episodes are out of control in virtually every corner of the globe. “Temperatures were above average in northern Russia and northeastern and southwestern Europe. [La situación fue similar] in eastern Canada and the central and eastern United States, as well as in most of Mexico, Morocco, Siberia and Australia. [La anomalía también fue persistente] in northwest Africa, China and Pakistan,” he explains.
Without financing, climate change advances
The phenomenon has begun to have effects on various ecosystems. Copernicus experts note that Arctic sea ice reached its third lowest monthly extent in November, at 9% below average. They add that atypical drought and rainfall events were a constant in various areas. The southern regions of the United States, Mexico, Chile, China and Africa presented drier than usual conditions. On the other hand, “unusual rainfall prevailed in western Iceland, southern United Kingdom, northern Scandinavia, southern Balkans and Greece, eastern Spain and much of eastern Europe,” he reveals.
Specialists accuse that the mitigation and response measures to climate change taken by world leaders are insufficient. They allege that there is a lack of economic resources to face the crisis. The sixteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity was destined to be the summit of financing. It was planned that during the event a subsidy model would be defined to guarantee the protection of at least 30% of natural habitats in 2030. Discussions in this regard were suspended on the last day due to insufficient attendance.
A report by the United Nations Environment Program estimated that the budget shortfall for adaptation to anthropogenic warming is between $194 billion and $366 billion annually. The lack of agreements in this regard aggravates the concerns that the situation generates. “No one should be happy with this since it affects us all. Meeting the mission of halting and reversing nature loss by 2030 was never going to be easy, but now we are dangerously off course,” says Kirsten Schuijt, director general of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
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