2024 Caps a Decade of Record-Breaking Heat

In a message ahead of the new year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned that 2024, which is expected to soon be confirmed as the hottest year on record, is just one of many record-breaking years for high temperatures over the past decade.

“Throughout 2024, hope has been hard to find. Wars are causing enormous pain, suffering and displacement. Inequalities and divisions are rife — fueling tensions and mistrust. And today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat,” Guterres said. As part of his message, the secretary-general warned that the previous decade has broken records for extreme heat.

“The top ten 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years, including 2024,” Guterres continued. “This is climate breakdown — in real time. We must exit this road to ruin — and we have no time to lose.”

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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which is part of the UN, recently reported that 2024 is set to be named the warmest year ever recorded. The official global temperature for 2024 will be published in January, the organization reported.

Following this news, scientists are urging immediate action to safeguard the planet against the most catastrophic effects of climate change, especially as the world is already experiencing more intense and more frequent extreme weather events.

“This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. “Tropical cyclones caused a terrible human and economic toll, most recently in the French overseas department of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Intense heat scorched dozens of countries, with temperatures topping 50°C on a number of occasions. Wildfires wreaked devastation.”

For 2025, WMO will focus heavily on cryosphere preservation, or preserving sea ice, ice sheets and other frozen parts of Earth. As NASA reported in September 2024, both Arctic and Antarctic ice reached near record lows for 2024, with Antarctica experiencing low ice levels even in the coldest months of the year for the Southern Hemisphere.

Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that for the first time in thousands of years, the Arctic was emitting more carbon than it was storing as a response to record-breaking temperatures, ice loss and wildfires.

Further, a recent report by the World Weather Attribution and Climate Central detailed severe impacts from climate change-related extreme weather events, which led to the premature deaths of at least 3,700 people and the displacement of millions of people in 2024. According to the report, climate change made 26 of 29 analyzed extreme weather events worse this year. Extreme heat in particular was made significantly worse by climate change, with an additional 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, the report found.

Guterres has warned that countries will need to unite to protect people and the planet moving forward.

“In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions, and supporting the transition to a renewable future,” Guterres said. “It is essential — and it is possible.”