2024 is set to be the hottest year on record globally, with unusually high temperatures projected to continue into at least the early months of 2025, according to European Union scientists. 

Data from the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) follows the recent U.N. climate talks, which resulted in a $300 billion agreement to address climate change. However, poorer nations have criticized the deal as inadequate to meet the escalating costs of climate-related disasters.

According to C3S, data from January to November confirms that 2024 will be the hottest year on record. It will also mark the first time average global temperatures have surpaased 1.5 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial levels of 1850-1900. 

The record for the hottest year was previously held by 2023.

In 2024, extreme weather events have impacted the Earth, including severe droughts in Italy and South America, deadly floods in Nepal, Sudan, and Europe, heatwaves in Mexico, Mali, and Saudi Arabia that claimed thousands of lives, and devastating cyclones in the U.S. and the Philippines.

Scientific studies have confirmed that human-induced climate change is responsible for the fingerprints of all these disasters.

Last month was the second warmest November on record after November 2023.

According to scientists, the primary driver of climate change is carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

Although, many countries have pledged to 'cutting emissions to net zero', to stop global warming from getting worse, the global CO2 emissions are set to hit a record high this year. 

Scientists are also keeping an eye on the potential formation of the La Niña weather pattern in 2025, which involves a cooling of ocean surface temperatures. While it could temporarily lower global temperatures, it would not reverse the long-term warming trend driven by emissions. Currently, the world is experiencing neutral conditions after the end of El Niño, La Niña's hotter counterpart, earlier this year.

[Disclaimer: This story is a part of ‘Punascha Pruthibi – One Earth. Unite for It’, an awareness campaign by Sambad Digital.]