Climate change leads to disruptions in the established cooling systems and circulation of water and air on the planet.
Global warming is gaining momentum and breaking record after record. January 2024 was the hottest on record. And for the first time in the post-industrial era, the surface temperature exceeded +1.5°C for 12 consecutive months.
Continuation of the trend
Last year was the warmest year in 100,000 years because human warming was accompanied by unprecedented warming of the ocean surface, exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon. In sum of the results of 2023, scientists from the Copernicus Climate Center of the European Union warned that 2024 will continue the bad tradition.
And so it did, the world’s ocean surface temperatures repeated the all-time record set in August last year, and the first days of February also broke it. As a result, January air temperatures were 1.66°C above pre-industrial levels in 1850–1900.
Consequences of warming
Climate change leads to disruptions in the established cooling systems and circulation of water and air on the planet. Disasters become more frequent, people become poor, die and become refugees. Countries are spending more and more not on social needs, but on combating both warming and its consequences.
Humanity has agreed to reduce emissions and limit the rise in global temperatures this century to within 2°C of pre-industrial levels, and ideally to keep it below 1.5°C. Otherwise, scientists predict the catastrophic consequences of climate change for life on earth.
And so, in January, the first of the two lines of defense laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement fell. In early February, the world experienced the first 12 months in history with temperatures above pre-industrial levels by one and a half degrees.
This week the European Commission presented a plan to accelerate and reduce emissions by 90% by 2040, without which it will be difficult to achieve the stated goal of completely neutralizing them by 2050. The presentation took place against the backdrop of peasant protests across Europe. Their demands are largely related to taxes, land use, fuel subsidies and an influx of cheap agricultural products from Ukraine and Latin America. However, right-wingers and populists portray the protests as a fight against the climate agenda.
In June, all 27 EU countries will elect a new European Parliament, and then the European Commission will change. All the polls predict a strengthening of the position of the parties on the right, most of which promise to reduce spending on climate change.
And in the leading oil and gas power and the world’s largest economy, the United States, the presidential election will be held in November. Donald Trump is still leading in the polls; in his first term as president, he completely withdrew America from the Paris Agreement.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.