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hurricane milton
'Never Happened Before': WMO Finds Past 10 Years Have Been 10 Hottest on Record
"While a single year above 1.5°C of warming does not indicate that the long-term temperature goals of the Paris agreement are out of reach, it is a wake-up call," wrote the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
Mar 19, 2025
A report released by the World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday found that not only was 2024 the warmest year in a 175-year observational period, reaching a global surface temperature of roughly 1.55°C above the preindustrial average for the first time, but each of the past 10 years was also individually the 10 warmest on record.
"That's never happened before," Chris Hewitt, the director of the WMO's climate services division, of the clustering of the 10 warmest years all in the most recent decade, told The New York Times.
All told, the agency's State of the Global Climate 2024 adds new details to the public's understanding of a planet that is getting steadily warmer thanks to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
2024 clearly surpassed 2023 in terms of global surface temperature. 2023 recorded a temperature of 1.45°C above the average for the years 1850-1900, which is used to represent preindustrial conditions, according to the report.
The report from the WMO, a United Nations agency, includes "the latest science-based update" on key climate indicators, such as atmospheric carbon dioxide, ocean heat content, and glacier mass balance. Many of these sections report grim milestones.
In 2023, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide reached the highest levels in the last 800,000 years, for example, and in 2024, ocean heat content reached the highest level recorded in the over half-century observational period, topping the previous heat record that was set in 2023.
As of 2023, two other greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, also reached levels unseen in the last 800,000 years.
"Over the course of 2024, our oceans continued to warm, sea levels continued to rise, and acidification increased. The frozen parts of Earth's surface, known as the cryosphere, are melting at an alarming rate: glaciers continue to retreat, and Antarctic sea ice reached the second-lowest extent ever recorded. Meanwhile, extreme weather continues to have devastating consequences around the world," wrote WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo in the introduction to the report, which drew its findings from data drawn from dozens of institutions around the world.
"While a single year above 1.5°C of warming does not indicate that the long-term temperature goals of the Paris agreement are out of reach, it is a wake-up call that we are increasing the risks to our lives, economies and the planet," wrote Saulo.
In 2015, 196 party countries signed on to the agreement to pursue efforts "to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels." According to the United Nations, going above 1.5ºC on an annual or monthly basis doesn't constitute failure to reach the agreement's goal, which refers to temperature rise over decades.
There are multiple methods that aim to measure potential breaches of 1.5°C over the long term, according to the report. The "best estimates" of current global warming based on three different approaches put global temperatures somewhere between 1.34°C and 1.41°C compared to the pre-industrial period.
The report also details the damage brought on by a number of extreme weather events last year, including Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the United States, and Cyclone Chido, which impacted the French territory of Mayotte.
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40K+ People Urge Trump-Led GOP to Stop Attacking Disaster Relief
"Politicizing disaster response efforts for political points at the expense of real people who are suffering after natural disasters is unacceptable."
Jan 27, 2025
Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling on U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to stop attacking disaster relief, including by trying to attach politicized conditions to California wildfire aid, spreading lies about the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and threatening to shut down the vital government body.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 41,300 people had signed the petition, which was launched by the progressive political action committee MoveOn earlier this month in the wake of Trump's mounting attacks on FEMA.
"Instead of working to support those trying to survive and rebuild, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are exploiting this climate disaster to spread disinformation and sow chaos for political points."
"The tragic wildfires raging across Southern California have killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands from their homes," the petition states. "But instead of working to support those trying to survive and rebuild, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are exploiting this climate disaster to spread disinformation and sow chaos for political points."
Trump has threatened to withhold wildfire aid if California does not enact voter identification legislation and reform its forest and water management policies. He also said last week that "FEMA's turned out to be a disaster," and that "we're gonna recommend that FEMA go away."
"And this isn't the first time," the MoveOn petition notes. "Right-wing disinformation and attacks against disaster workers prevented people from getting the urgent help they needed in the wake of devastating natural disasters like Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Conservative-fueled conspiracies have even resulted in meteorologists receiving death threats for reporting on the weather and explaining climate science."
"Accessible and accurate information, including weather forecasts and disaster relief, can be lifesaving for those impacted," the petition stresses. "Instead of focusing on helping our communities recover from these latest natural disasters, Republicans disseminated harmful disinformation about FEMA's response and relief efforts, discouraging people from getting the help they urgently need. And they're doing it again."
MoveOn cited recent examples including Trump falsely accusing FEMA of stealing donations and diverting disaster aid to migrants, and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) unfounded allegation that Democrats are controlling the weather. Critics say such baseless claims endanger FEMA personnel and make their work harder, if not impossible.
"Threats of truckloads of militia members 'hunting FEMA' forced FEMA and U.S. Forest Service workers to pause their lifesaving recovery efforts to relocate workers out of fear for their safety," MoveOn said of agency work in North Carolina. "Survivors of natural disasters who urgently need assistance are refusing FEMA's help because of this disinformation."
"Conservative-led disinformation campaigns against our disaster relief workers and meteorologists are threatening public safety and undermining public trust in our lifesaving institutions," the petition argues. "In times of crisis, our elected officials should be working to deliver aid and recovery—not spreading conspiracy theories on social media. Politicizing disaster response efforts for political points at the expense of real people who are suffering after natural disasters is unacceptable."
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What Were the Most Expensive Climate Disasters of 2024?
"The human suffering caused by the climate crisis reflects political choices. There is nothing natural about the growing severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms," said the CEO of Christian Aid.
Dec 30, 2024
Climate disasters aren't cheap. In 2024, the 10 costliest extreme weather events not only extracted a toll in the form of human lives, but also each cost over $4 billion in economic damages—and some much more—according to a report released Monday from the global group Christian Aid.
"The human suffering caused by the climate crisis reflects political choices. There is nothing natural about the growing severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms," said Christian Aid CEO Patrick Watt in a statement Monday.
"Disasters are being supercharged by decisions to keep burning fossil fuels, and to allow emissions to rise. And they're being made worse by the consistent failure to deliver on financial commitments to the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries," he continued.
According to the report, the costliest climate disasters in terms of economic cost this year, in ascending order, were: Valencia floods in Spain; Bavaria floods in Germany; Rio Grande do Sul floods in Brazil; Storm Boris in Central Europe; Hurricane Beryl in the U.S., Mexico, and Caribbean islands; Typhoon Yagi in Southwest Asia; China floods in China; Hurricane Helene in the U.S., Mexico, and Cuba; Hurricane Milton in the U.S.; and U.S. storms in the United States.
Two items on the list—"China floods" and "U.S. storms"—are not a single event. The China floods refer to flood events across China that happened in June and July, and U.S. storms are all storms classified by the global professional services firm Aon as "severe convective storm" for the period between January and September, according to the report.
These U.S. storms, the most expensive climate disaster of 2024, amounted to over $60 billion in economic costs and 88 deaths, per the report. The second costliest, Hurricane Milton, caused 25 deaths and $60 billion in economic losses.
Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida, was made worse by fossil fuel emissions: "In a world without climate change, Hurricane Milton would have made landfall as a Category 2 storm. Instead, it struck as a Category 3 hurricane, with stronger winds and more intense rainfall, causing extensive tornado activity, and damaging infrastructure in regions still recovering from previous hurricanes."
Specifically, "a rapid analysis by Climate Central showed that the unusually warm ocean temperatures, which fueled the hurricane's rapid intensification, were made 400-800 times more likely by climate change over the two weeks preceding the storm," according to the report.
The report's authors also caveat that the losses tallied in the document are likely an undercount. Most of the costs estimates are based on insured losses, meaning that the true financial costs are likely to be even higher (for example, it does not include economic costs stemming from crop production losses). Human costs are also often undercounted, the report's authors state.
Another important piece of context is that economic costs are generally higher in absolute terms for richer countries because the value of infrastructure and private property tends to be higher, living costs are greater, and more is covered by insurance—meaning losses are more calculable in financial terms, per the report. However, the death toll tends to be higher in poorer countries.
The deadliest climate disaster, according to the report, was Typhoon Yagi, which came in as the fifth most expensive climate disaster in terms of economic cost, and caused the deaths of over 829 people. The typhoon struck multiple countries in southeast Asia, causing landslides, flooding, and infrastructure damage in places including the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Thailand. In Myanmar, for example, it devastated entire villages and decimated over 2.3 million hectares of agricultural land.
In its Monday statement, Christian Aid highlighted that "some of the most devastating extreme weather events in 2024 hit poorer nations, which have contributed little to causing the climate crisis and have the least resources to respond."
To that end, the group is calling on Global North countries to increase their commitment to climate finance and cease development of new fossil fuel projects.
The report also includes additional information about disasters that didn't make it into the top ten for economic damages, but are still of note. They include a drought that impacted countries in southern Africa between February and July and floods impacting Afghanistan and Pakistan between March and September.
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