NOAH EVERARD
JOSEPH DAVIDSON-LABOUT
HUGH ACTON
The Bottom Line.
2024 was the hottest year on record. The global average temperature sat between 1.55 and 1.6°C higher than pre-industrial levels.
This signals a new era of the climate crisis; the post-1.5°C world. While it’s important to note that we have not yet necessarily missed the goals under the Paris Agreements of limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees as this measure needs long term averages, it signals that our window is rapidly closing. The last 10 years have been the hottest on record, almost perfectly year-on-year. If this pattern continues, which it is expected to do, we will not meet these climate targets.
The climate crisis is no longer hypothetical, safely obscured behind a lack of immediacy; the post-1.5°C world is one where we will all feel the effects of anthropogenic emissions. This is the final chapter where we will have any chance at altering our path, at rectitude.