Copernicus data:

Global warming to exceed 1.5 degrees for the first time this year!

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Wolfilser)

According to the EU climate change service Copernicus, the current year will almost certainly be the first year since records began in which it was on average more than 1.5 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial average.

This will also make it the warmest year since measurements began. However, the Paris 1.5-degree target for containing the climate crisis is not yet considered to have been missed, as this is based on longer-term average values, according to the report.

Copernicus predicts that the average global temperature for the current year could be at least 1.55 degrees above the global pre-industrial average. In 2023 it was 1.48 degrees. At the time, UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke of a "climate breakdown".

"This represents a new milestone in the global temperature record and should serve as an accelerator to raise the targets for the upcoming COP29 climate conference," said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the EU Climate Change Service, commenting on the latest data.

Climate researcher: "No breakthrough at COPs"
German climate scientist Mojib Latif is skeptical about the impact of the meeting: "The COPs are obviously not effective, and there will be no breakthrough in Baku," he said. "Even if they try to sell the final declaration as such, as they have so often done in recent years."

At the 2015 World Climate Conference in Paris, countries around the world agreed to limit global warming to below two degrees, but preferably to 1.5 degrees. "The 1.5 degree target has a high symbolic value," explained climate scientist Steve Smith from the University of Oxford.

However, according to experts, there is no clear definition for these politically determined thresholds. Politicians generally believe that the 1.5-degree threshold should only be considered breached once the average annual temperature has been consistently above this value for two decades, said Latif.

Greenhouse gas emissions historically high
However, such a view is nonsensical: greenhouse gas emissions were once again historically high last year and all climate parameters were pointing in the wrong direction. It is absolutely clear that global warming will continue to increase - you don't have to wait 20 years for confirmation.

Anders Levermann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) also emphasized that the key question is no longer when the 1.5-degree threshold will be reached. "When will we reach net zero emissions, that must be the goal, that's why there must be competition."

If emissions are not stopped, temperatures will continue to rise, the climate researcher told dpa. One consequence would be more and heavier heavy rainfall, such as that which has just hit the region around Valencia in Spain. "People will continue to die, all the more so the more we push up temperatures," said the PIK expert