2024 was Earth’s hottest year on record, with climate change mainly responsible for the high temperatures, according to the Copernicus climate service. That target is generally understood to mean an average annual increase of 1.5C over 20 years rather than a one-off rise in a single year.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen by more than 50%.
Human activities are causing the world to heat up, posing serious threats to people and nature.
This has been without doubt caused by human activities, especially the widespread use of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — in homes, factories and transport systems.
The world has been rapidly warming for around a century, causing weather patterns to change.
Climate change is the long-term shift in the Earth’s average temperatures and weather conditions.
Nearly 200 countries pledged in the 2015 Paris agreement to try to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The opposite El Niño pattern, combined with climate change, makes it likely that 2026 will also rank among the hottest years ever recorded.
It was also the first calendar year to surpass 1.5C of warming compared with pre-industrial levels of the late 1800s, Copernicus said.