Up until last year, people around the world kept wondering – ‘1.5°C of global warming – are we there yet?
The answer is YES now.
The world has just crossed the 1.5°C threshold of global warming.
On January 10, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) gave confirmation that in 2024 the world has likely just experienced the first calendar year with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial reference period.
After a consolidated analysis of six international weather datasets, WMO concludes that 2024 is the warmest year on record, and the past ten years have all been in the top-10, in an extraordinary streak of record-breaking temperatures.
The global average surface temperature was 1.55°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the 1850-1900 average, according to WMO, a specialized agency of the United Nations.
In a statement issued at the prospect of world hitting historic rise in its temperature, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “Today’s assessment from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) proves yet again – global heating is a cold, hard fact.”
“Individual years pushing past the 1.5 degree limit do not mean the long-term goal is shot. It means we need to fight even harder to get on track. Blazing temperatures in 2024 require trail-blazing climate action in 2025,” he said.
“There's still time to avoid the worst of climate catastrophe. But leaders must act – now,” he said.
Heat waves batter Bangladesh
Bangladesh experienced back to back heat waves in 2023 and 2024 with temperatures, at times, jumping six degrees more than annual average. Heat waves sweeping many northern and southern districts were considered most intense in recent history, causing crop losses and forcing the government to go for nationwide school closure, impacting missions’ of children’s education.
Bangladesh’s historical climate has experienced average temperature around 26°C, but range between 15°C to 34°C throughout the year.
In recent years (2018-2022), Bangladesh experienced a 0.9℃ rise in its summer temperature relative to the 1986-2005 baseline. That’s 0.2℃ higher than the global average increase in summer temperatures.
Over 40% of the region’s total working population is absorbed in farm sector and many of them are now finding it increasingly too hot to work, out in the fields.
Average summer temperatures have increased in South Asia, increasing the time when it is too hot to work outside and the land area affected by drought.
Currently the number of hours when it is too hot to work outside in Bangladesh is 7-hour but projection is that it might increase to 8-hour by 2050.
According to a 2023 Lancet report, heat exposure-related loss in labour capacity resulted in average potential income losses equivalent to $863 billion globally in 2022 and agricultural workers were the most affected. Rising temperature helped 28.6% increase in the transmission potential for dengue by Aedes aegypti.
Climate history playing out before our eyes
The WMO’s temperature assessment was based on multiple sources of data from – the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Japan Meteorological Agency, Nasa, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the UK’s Met Office in collaboration with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (HadCRUT), and Berkeley Earth.
“Climate history is playing out before our eyes. We’ve had not just one or two record-breaking years, but a full ten-year series. This has been accompanied by devastating and extreme weather, rising sea levels and melting ice, all powered by record-breaking greenhouse gas levels due to human activities,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
“It is important to emphasize that a single year of more than 1.5°C for a year does NOT mean that we have failed to meet Paris Agreement long-term temperature goals, which are measured over decades rather than an individual year. However, it is essential to recognize that every fraction of a degree of warming matters. Whether it is at a level below or above 1.5°C of warming, every additional increment of global warming increases the impacts on our lives, economies and our planet,” said Celeste Saulo.
