After 13 months of what felt like an endless breaking of heat records, the streak came to an end last month — just barely. The European climate agency Copernicus said July 2024’s average heat just missed surpassing July of last year. While the slightly cooler month is good news and could provide some minor relief for people exposed to extreme heat, scientists warned that the root cause of the rising temperatures, climate change, remains the same.
Here are five takeaways from the 13-month heat streak that just ended:
One factor in the slight cooling is the ebbing of El Nino, a naturally occurring pattern of warming in part of the Pacific that shifts weather patterns around the world. But even if that helps avoid more records being broken soon, the upward trend of temperatures won’t stop. That is because the driver of global warming, the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fuels like oil, gas and coal, continues all but unabated. The upshot: Extreme weather events like intense storms, heat waves and prolonged droughts will continue.
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Sometimes lost in all of the focus on the heat around us is how warm the oceans are. Oceans have absorbed huge quantities of carbon dioxide, making them key climate regulators. Beyond that, warm oceans have devastating consequences, from the die-off of fish and other sea animals to creating prime conditions for powerful hurricanes. Ocean temperatures have risen so much that a few months ago scientists said the world was on the brink of the worst coral bleaching event in history. A new study found that temperatures in the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Australia, were the warmest they had been in 400 years.
3 The 1.5 metric is not likely ‘alive’
Going back to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since the 1850s.
In recent years, environmentalists and politicians have used the slogan “keep 1.5 alive” in hopes of rallying governments to enact policy changes that would sharply reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. While the goal will no doubt continue to be discussed, such as during the annual U.N. climate conference in Azerbaijan later this year, the past 13 months have shown that keeping temperatures under that threshold is very unlikely. Warming is around 1.2 Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) globally, and parts of the world have already surpassed a 1.5-degree increase.
4 Governments are scrambling
The heat of the past 13 months exposed just how much governments around the world are struggling to help citizens adapt to rising temperatures.
The challenge is most acute in developing countries that don’t have the infrastructure or resources to keep citizens from being exposed to extreme heat, which attacks organs and can eventually cause death. But developed nations are also scrambling.
Most deaths happen indoors; having air conditioning doesn’t matter if people don’t turn it on because of high energy costs, for example.
5 Solutions are coming into focus
Scientists say the high temperatures have underscored the urgency to decrease the release of greenhouse gases from all aspects of human life, from transportation to heating and cooling.
Technologies to do that are well established: solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal, among others. In 2023, the world hit a milestone: 30% of electricity generation from renewable sources.
In last year’s U.N. climate talks in Dubai, the international community also agreed to “transition away” from fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources.
While significant strides are being made, huge obstacles to the green energy transition remain, from continued investment in fossil fuels like natural gas to a need for trillions of dollars in investments.
