2024 was the hottest year on record, with temperatures rising by 1.55°C compared to the pre-industrial era, the UN warned today.

While this increase does not mean the Paris Climate Agreement is dead, “the heatwave temperatures of 2024 require innovative climate action in 2025,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

For the first time in the modern history of the planet, the limit of 1.5 degrees of temperature increase, which was set in the Paris Agreement, was exceeded on average in the last two years. In 2024 the increase in global surface temperature was more than 1.55°C (with a margin of error of ±0.13°C) compared to the period 1850-1900, according to an analysis by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). a UN agency based on six major international databases.

The European Copernicus observatory earlier reported that 2024 was indeed the warmest year on record since records began in 1850. 2025 is not expected to break any records, but Copernicus estimates that it will be one of the three hottest years in the history of the planet.

“It is important to underline that a single year with a temperature rise of more than 1.5°C DOES NOT mean we have failed to meet the long-term, multi-decade goals of the Paris Agreement,” commented WCO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo .