World Meteorological Organization confirms 2024 is the warmest year on record by WMO, United Nations News, agencies   10 Jan. 2025   The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has confirmed that 2024 is the warmest year on record, based on six international datasets. The past ten years have all been in the Top Ten, in an extraordinary streak of record-breaking temperatures.   The global average surface temperature was 1.55 °C above the 1850-1900 average, according to WMO’s consolidated analysis of the six datasets. This means that we have likely just experienced the first calendar year with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average.   “Today’s assessment from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) proves yet again – global heating is a cold, hard fact,” said UN Secretary-General Antóno Guterres.   “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.   The WMO provides a temperature assessment based on multiple sources of data to support international climate monitoring and to provide authoritative information for the UN Climate Change negotiating process. The datasets are 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.   A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences found that ocean warming in 2024 played a key role in the record high temperatures. The ocean is the warmest it has ever been as recorded by humans, not only at the surface but also for the upper 2000 meters, according to the study led by Prof. Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It involved a team of 54 scientists from seven countries and 31 institutes. About 90% of the excess heat from global warming is stored in the ocean, making ocean heat content a critical indicator of climate change.   Mr Guterres called on governments to deliver new national climate action plans this year to limit long-term global temperature rise to 1.5°C, and support the most vulnerable deal with devastating climate impacts.   http://wmo.int/media/news/wmo-confirms-2024-warmest-year-record-about-155degc-above-pre-industrial-level http://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1158891 http://climate.copernicus.eu/global-climate-highlights-2024 http://www.nasa.gov/news-release/temperatures-rising-nasa-confirms-2024-warmest-year-on-record/ http://insideclimatenews.org/news/09012025/2024-global-warming-surges-well-past-1-5-degree-mark/ Visit the related web page
	International Court of Justice opens case on responsibilities of states to act on climate change by ICJ, IPS News, CIEL, Save the Children, agencies   Dec. 2024   The International Court of Justice on December 2, 2024 began its deliberations into the obligations under international law of UN member states to protect people and ecosystems from climate change.   The case was started by the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) with the support of Ishmael Kalsakau, the then prime minister of the Pacific island of Vanuatu.   Vanautu will be the first of 98 countries that will make presentations during the fortnight of hearings, after which the court will give an advisory opinion.   A few UN member states responsible for the majority of emissions have breached international law, Ralph Regenvanu, a special climate envoy from Vanuatu, told the International Court of Justice in the Hague in his opening address.   Regenvanu said his nation of islands and people had built vibrant cultures over millennia “that are intimately intertwined with our ancestral lands and seas. Yet today, we find ourselves on the front lines of a crisis we did not create.”   Arnold Kiel Loughman, Attorney General of Vanuatu, said it was for the ICJ to uphold international law and hold states accountable for their actions.   “How can the conduct that has taken humanity to the brink of catastrophe, threatening the survival of entire peoples, be lawful and without consequences?” Loughman asked.   “We urge the Court to affirm in the clearest terms that this conduct is in breach of the obligations of states and international law, and that such a breach carries consequences.”   Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, the lead counsel for Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group, said some states had breached international law through their acts and omissions.   She said this included issuing licences for fossil fuel extraction and granting subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, as well as failure to regulate emissions or to provide finance under the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC).   Wewerinke-Singh said responsible states were required to make full reparation for the injury they had caused and this must be “proportionate to historic contributions to the harm”. She said this could include monetary compensation in addition to cash committed under the UNFCCC.   Cynthia Houniuhi, the head of the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, which had initiated the action, said climate change was undermining “the sacred contract” between generations.   “Without our land, our bodies and memories are severed from the fundamental relationships that define who we are. Those who stand to lose are the future generations. Their future is uncertain, reliant upon the decision-making of a handful of large emitting states.”   Throughout the day, countries impacted by climate change told the ICJ that climate change agreements did not preclude other aspects of international law. During it’s first day of hearings, the court heard from Vanuatu and Melanesian Spearhead Group, South Africa, Albania, Germany, Antigua and Barbuda, Saudi Arabia, Australia, the Bahamas, Bangladesh and Barbados.   Barbados gave graphic examples of how climate change affects the country and asked the court to consider robust obligations on states to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions.   “Climate change is not some unstoppable force that individual states have no control over. We must cut through the noise and accept that those whose activities have led to the current state of global affairs must offer a response that is commensurate with the destruction that has been caused. There is no parity, there is no fairness, there is no equity,” Bahamas attorney general Ryan Pinder told the court.   Showing a photograph of piles of what looked like refuse, Pinder recalled the impact of Hurricane Dorian.   “You can easily mistake this photograph for a pile of rubbish. However, what you are looking at are lost homes and lost livelihoods. A 20-foot storm surge rushed through the streets of these islands, contributing to approximately 3 billion US dollars in economic damage. That’s about 25 percent of our annual GDP in just two days. The results of such a storm are real.   They include displaced people, learning loss, livelihoods, and lost and missing loved ones, all because some countries have ignored the warning signs of the climate crisis.”   “It is time for these polluters to pay. The IPCC has been telling us for years that the only way to stop a warming planet is to make deep, rapid and sustained cuts in the global greenhouse gas emissions. The world needs to reach net zero emissions by 2050, which requires a cut in the GHG emissions by at least 43 percent in the next five years. Industrial states need to take urgent action now and provide reparations for their decades of neglect.”   The ICJ’s hearings and advisory opinion are unique in that they do not focus solely on a single aspect of international law. Instead, they include the UN Charter, the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the duty of due diligence, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principle of prevention of significant harm to the environment, and the duty to protect and preserve marine environments.   The court will give its opinion on the obligations of states under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system for present and future generations.   It will also consider the legal consequences of causing significant harm to the climate system and the environment and its impact on other states, including “small island developing states (SIDS), which are affected by climate change, and peoples and individuals, both present and future generations, affected by the adverse effects of climate change.”   Attorney General Graham Leung of Fiji says the court isn’t a substitute for negotiations, which are complex and painstakingly slow.   “The ICJ opinion will be precedent-setting. That is to say it will cover and discuss and analyze the legal issues and the scientific issues, and it will come to a very, very important or authoritative decision that will carry great moral weight.   While the court doesn’t have enforcement rights and while it won’t be legally binding, it will work through moral persuasion.   “It’s going to be a very brave country that will stand up against an advisory opinion on the International Court of Justice, because if you are in that minority that violates the opinion of the court, you can be regarded as a pariah or as an outlaw in the international community.”   The hearings come as the outcome of the COP29 negotiations was met with criticism, especially with regard to the financing of the impacts of climate change.   Ahead of the hearings, WWF Global Climate and Energy Lead and COP20 President Manuel Pulgar-Vidal said, “With most countries falling far short of their obligations to reduce emissions and protect and restore nature, this advisory opinion has the potential to send a powerful legal signal that states cannot ignore their legal duties to act.”   Other criticisms of the present status quo include a belief that the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are inadequate, and climate finance, intended as a polluter pays mechanism, has failed to reach those most affected, with, for example, the Pacific countries only receiving 0.2 percent of the USD 100 billion a year climate finance pledge.   Cristelle Pratt, Assistant Secretary General of the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS), agrees that the court’s decision will make it easier to negotiate on climate finance and loss and damage provisions by making that clearer.   It’s expected the ICJ to publish its final advisory opinion in 2025.   http://www.icj-cij.org/multimedia/204420 http://www.icj-cij.org/case/187 http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/12/small-island-states-demand-international-court-look-beyond-climate-treaties-justice/ http://www.ciel.org/news/historic-climate-justice-hearings/ http://www.ciel.org/news/historic-climate-justice-hearings-icj/ http://www.savethechildren.net/news/pacific-youth-hope-historic-hearing-hague-delivers-climate-justice-where-cop-did-not http://www.rightsoffuturegenerations.org/the-principles http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/general-comments-and-recommendations/crccgc26-general-comment-no-26-2023-childrens-rights   http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/02/handful-of-countries-responsible-for-climate-crisis-icj-court-told http://wmo.int/news/media-centre/2024-track-be-hottest-year-record-warming-temporarily-hits-15degc http://www.ipcc.ch/reports http://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session57/advance-versions/A-HRC-57-30-AEV.pdf http://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595 http://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/25-of-35-planetary-vital-signs-at-record-extremes-2024-state-of-the-climate-report Visit the related web page
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