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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Damian Carrington Environment editor

Hottest year on record sent planet past 1.5C of heating for first time in 2024

Sunrise during November's heatwave in Sydney.
The average person was exposed in 2024 to an extra six weeks of dangerously hot days. Photograph: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

Climate breakdown drove the annual global temperature above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time last year, supercharging extreme weather and causing “misery to millions of people”.

The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows. That is a jump of 0.1C from 2023, which was also a record hot year and represents levels of heat never experienced by modern humans.

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