State of the climate 2024: Update for COP29

The WMO State of the Climate 2024 Update once again issues a Red Alert at the sheer pace of climate change in a single generation, turbo-charged by ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. 2015-2024 will be the warmest ten years on record; the loss of ice from glaciers, sea-level rise and ocean heating are accelerating; and extreme weather is wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world.

The January – September 2024 global mean surface air temperature was 1.54 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ±0.13°C) above the pre-industrial average, boosted by a warming El Niño event, according to an analysis of six international datasets used by WMO. The report was issued on the first day of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan. It highlights that the ambitions of the Paris Agreement are in great peril.