With respect to climate change, 2024 was in many ways similar to 2023: Manifestations of a changed climate continued to be felt increasingly across the world, even as the clean-energy transition continued to gather pace against formidable headwinds.

Major climate indicators showed 2023 to be the warmest year in the 174-year observational record, with the highest measured level of ocean heat content, the highest global mean sea level on record, and the lowest measured Antarctic sea-ice extent—and 2024 is on track to be even warmer. The global average surface air temperature in the January-September period of 2024 was 1.54 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, already slightly exceeding the “defense line” target of 1.5 degrees Celsius put forward in the Paris Agreement.

Similarly, extreme weather and climate events continued to negatively affect societies, rich and poor, as well as ecosystems around the world. East Asia, Southeast Europe, the Mediterranean and Middle East, the Southwestern United States, Southeast Asia, Northern India, Central America, and the Horn of Africa all suffered from heat waves. The Americas and Northwestern and Southern Africa experienced major droughts while Europe, Brazil, the Sahel, Afghanistan, and East Africa endured devastating floods.

Attribution studies are highlighting the role of climate change in many such events. For example, a recent study has indicated that roughly half of the 68,000 deaths during the 2022 summer heat waves in Europe were attributable to warming caused by human activity.

On the economic front, a recent study suggests that climate change will result in a significant reduction in average incomes by mid-century (in comparison with a baseline with no climate change impacts). And the countries that will be hit the hardest are those in the lower latitudes that have far less wealth and whose per capita emissions are but a small fraction of those produced in the wealthy countries.

Global greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, and it follows that globally averaged temperature will also continue to increase. The globally averaged surface concentrations for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) reached new highs in 2023. The successors to the devastating weather events experienced in 2024 are therefore expected to be even more severe.

On the positive side, renewables continue to dominate new deployment of energy: The 473-gigawatt addition in renewable power capacity in 2023 was 86 percent of the total net capacity addition. But these additions are concentrated in only a few regions (G20 countries accounted for almost 90 percent of global renewable power capacity), and significant investment in fossil fuels continues. Global investment in the low-carbon energy transition reached almost $1.8 trillion in 2023, an increase of 17 percent over the previous year, and is expected to reach $2 trillion in 2024.

The investments for adaptation to climate change impacts are, however, much lower than needed to avoid the worst climate impacts. It is estimated that climate finance (encompassing both mitigation and adaptation efforts) must increase by a factor of at least five under a 1.5C scenario.

The New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance adopted at the COP 29 climate summit aims to increase finance allocated to developing countries from public and private sources to $1.3 trillion per year by 2035. Grants or loans below market rates to accelerate the development of climate mitigation or adaptation actions, such as clean technologies, would also increase three-fold, from the earlier annual goal of $100 billion to $300 billion by 2035. While these commitments may seem impressive, given the actual magnitude of the climate challenge, many advocates for developing countries consider them grossly inadequate and even a “betrayal” of what was formerly promised.

 

Read the 2025 Doomsday Clock statement »