Scientists have warned that the Paris Agreement to limit global warming will likely be breached as data reveals 2024 was the hottest year in human history.

Global temperatures in 2024 soared to yet another record level, but this time it was such a big jump that Earth temporarily passed a major symbolic climate threshold.

One reason is that global temperatures were off-the-charts hot in 2023, with an average 1.45 °C of warming above the pre-industrial baseline (see ‘Temperature surge’), shattering previous records. This level of warming is outside the range of what scientists expected on the basis of previous trends and modelling.