Express view: Another year, a hotter planet
It’s all but certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record. Latest data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) show that last November was the 16th month in a 17-month period when the average global temperature rise was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-Industrial Revolution period. The Paris Pact commits its 196 signatories to keep global heating to below 1.5 degrees to limit the impact of climate disasters. The world came close to breaching that threshold last year. With the temperature rise in the first 11 months of 2024 exceeding 1.6 degrees, C3S warns that there will be a default on the Paris benchmark this year. That does not yet mean a contravention of the landmark climate treaty — its implementation is measured over at least a decade. But reversing temperature trends will require sustained action on several fronts.
Meteorologists had anticipated global temperatures to come down a tad this year after the planet heated to a record level in 2023. Their forecasts were hinged on the cooling effects of the La Nina, which was initially expected to set in around July and then in October. La Nina can only be confirmed if the Oceanic Niño Index consistently drops to at least -0.5 degrees. This threshold has not been met so far this year, leaving scientists perplexed — the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has admitted to being “spooked”. Only twice in the past 75 years has La Nina set in later than October. Experts reckon that the La Nina will be weak even if it arrives mid-winter. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology estimates that it could even be delayed till February 2025. From affecting crop cycles and energy use to having a bearing on local pollution to increasing the vagaries of extreme weather events, the behaviour of this oceanic phenomenon poses a new climate-related challenge. Policymakers will have to prepare for the economic ramifications and scientists and Met bodies will have to work together to refine forecasting models.
Close on the heels of C3S’s announcement on November temperatures, the Swiss Re Institute — the academic wing of the eponymous insurance major — released a report on the economic costs of extreme weather events. It estimated that climate vagaries cost the world $320 billion this year, 25 per cent more than the average over the past decade. Meteorological extremes do not necessarily have to develop into disaster risks. Mitigation of GHG emissions and adaptation to weather vagaries hold the key to a climate-resilient world. If the record of post-Paris CoPs is any indication, national governments and global policymaking agencies have their task cut out.