This year’s climate summit comes in the backdrop of a year marked by record-breaking heat waves, influential elections, and intense global tensions.

For the second year in a row, Earth will almost certainly be the hottest it’s ever been. And for the first time, the globe this year reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared to the pre-industrial average, as per the European climate agency Copernicus.

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As per WMO analysis of six international datasets. The January – September 2024 global mean surface air temperature was 1.54 degrees Celsius(with a margin of uncertainty of ±0.13 degrees Celsius) above the pre-industrial average, boosted by a warming El Niño event.

On 11 November, the very first day of this year’s Climate Summit, the WMO State of the Climate 2024 Update once again issued a red alert at the sheer pace of climate change in a single generation, turbo-charged by ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

The global mean temperature in 2024 is on track to outstrip the temperature even of 2023, the current warmest year. For 16 consecutive months (June 2023 to September 2024), the global mean temperature likely exceeded anything recorded before, and often by a wide margin, according to WMO’s consolidated analysis of the datasets. One or more individual years exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius does not necessarily mean that “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” as stated in the Paris Agreement is out of reach.

2015-2024 was the warmest ten years on record; the loss of ice from glaciers, sea-level rise and ocean heating are accelerating; and extreme weather is wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world.

“Climate catastrophe is hammering health, widening inequalities, harming sustainable development, and rocking the foundations of peace. The vulnerable are hardest hit,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

As per the World Meteorological Organisation:

Greenhouse gases

Greenhouse gases reached record observed levels in 2023. Real-time data indicate that they continued to rise in 2024. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) has increased from around 278 ppm in 1750 to 420 ppm in 2023, an increase of 51 per cent. This traps heat and causes temperatures to rise.

Ocean 

Ocean heat content in 2023 was the highest on record and preliminary data show 2024 has continued at comparable levels. Ocean warming rates show a particularly strong increase in the past two decades. From 2005 to 2023, the ocean absorbed on average approximately 3.1 million terawatt-hours (TWh) of heat each year. This is more than 18 times the world’s energy consumption in 2023.

About 90 per cent of the energy that has accumulated in the Earth system is stored in the ocean and it is therefore expected that ocean warming will continue – a change that is irreversible on centennial to millennial timescales.

Sea level rise

Sea level rise is accelerating because of the thermal expansion of warmer waters and melting glaciers and ice sheets. From 2014-2023, global mean sea level rose at a rate of 4.77 mm per year, more than double the rate between 1993 and 2002. The El Niño effect meant it grew even more rapidly in 2023.  Preliminary 2024 data shows that, with the decline of El Niño, it has fallen back to levels consistent with the rising trend from 2014 to 2022.

Glacier loss

Glacier loss is worsening. In 2023, glaciers lost a record 1.2-meter water equivalent of ice – about five times the amount of water in the Dead Sea. It was the largest loss since measurements began in 1953 and was due to extreme melting in North America and Europe. In Switzerland, glaciers lost about 10 per cent of their remaining volume in 2021/2022 and 2022/2023.

Weather and climate extremes

Weather and climate extremes undermined sustainable development across the board, worsening food insecurity and exacerbating displacement and migration. Dangerous heat afflicted millions of people throughout the world. Heavy precipitation, floods and tropical cyclones led to massive loss of life and damage. Persistent drought in some regions was worsened by El Niño.

Immediate action is needed at all levels to protect vulnerable global communities from sea levels that are rising significantly faster than the global average. Particularly India where places such as Sundarbans and coastal Odisha may witness severe disaster.

On 12 November the UNHCR published a report on the sidelines at COP29 where it called for an increased climate finance for those who need it the most. According to the report – ’No Escape: On the Frontlines of Climate Change, Conflict and Forced Displacement’ – by 2040 the number of countries facing extreme climate-related hazards is expected to rise from 3 to 65, the vast majority of which host displaced people.

Similarly, most refugee settlements and camps are projected to experience twice as many days of dangerous heat by 2050. The report also highlights that climate financing is failing to reach refugees, host communities and others in fragile and war-torn countries, so their ability to adapt to the effects of climate change is fast deteriorating.

Various scientific reports have found that the South Asian nation could lose up to 17 per cent of its land to rising seas and is also at the brunt of increasingly more frequent and intense cyclonic storms.

The leaders of HKH countries pledge to strengthen ties to tackle the climate crisis in the mountains

Scientists warn of ‘extreme’ and mounting economic costs from snow and ice loss, which broke records in 2023, the leaders from the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) countries met to discuss the crisis in the continent’s largest frozen water stores, the HKH.

Ministers and heads of delegations from six of the eight countries that share the Earth’s tallest cryosphere zone met at a meeting hosted by Bhutan’s Prime Minister Hon’ble Tshering Tobgay on day two of the global climate conference COP29 in Azerbaijan, 12 November.

Speaking at the meeting organized by ICIMOD, of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) countries on the sidelines of COP29, leaders from the region voiced the concerns of the vast population that depended on the Earth’s tallest cryosphere zone and biodiversity hotspot, the HKH.

Tshering Tobgay, Prime Minister of Bhutan said, “With the world fast moving towards a 1.5 degree Celsius warming over pre-industrial levels will accelerate disasters for the entire region, 240 million people in HKH and 1.6 billion live downstream. He added, “We need to do more. We need to come together with a unified source of vision, with one voice and call for action.”

The writer is a communication consultant