Ultimate 2024 Set to Be Hottest June on Record, Warns EU Scientists

• COP29 summit aims to increase climate change funding.
• Climate change is fuelling extreme weather, says C3S director.
• World expected to exceed Paris Agreement goal by 2030.
  

This year is “virtually certain” to eclipse 2023 as the world’s warmest since records began, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday.

The data was released ahead of next week’s UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where countries will try to agree a huge increase in funding to tackle climate change. Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential election has dampened expectations for the talks.

C3S said that from January to October, the average global temperature had been so high that 2024 was sure to be the world’s hottest year Hottest June on Record – unless the temperature anomaly in the rest of the year plunged to near-zero.

“The fundamental, underpinning cause of this year’s record is climate change,” C3S Director Carlo Buontempo told Reuters.

“The climate is warming, generally. It’s warming in all continents, in all ocean basins. So we are bound to see those records being broken,” he said.

The scientists said 2024 will also be Hottest June on Record, the first year in which the planet is more than 1.5°C hotter than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale.

Carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil and gas are the main cause of global warming.

Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist at public research university ETH Zurich, said she was not surprised by the milestone, and urged governments at COP29 to agree stronger action to wean their economies off CO2-emitting fossil fuels.

“The limits that were set in the Paris agreement are starting to crumble given the too-slow pace of climate action across the world,” Seneviratne said.

Why June 2023 Was Exceptionally Hot

Scientists and climate experts have pointed to a combination of natural and human-made factors that contributed to the sweltering temperatures in June 2023.

1. The El Niño Phenomenon

One of the natural climate patterns, El Niño, began influencing the planet’s weather once more in 2023. El Niño is a periodic climate pattern originating from the Pacific Ocean that leads to warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures, subsequently impacting global weather systems. In 2023, the return of El Niño intensified seasonal temperatures, particularly in areas already prone to higher-than-average summer heat.

2. Ongoing Global Warming Due to Greenhouse Gas Emissions

While El Niño contributed to the soaring temperatures, the underlying driver remains human-induced global warming. The release of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O), has continuously raised global average

Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to prevent global warming surpassing 1.5°C, to avoid its worst consequences. Hottest June on Record.

The world has not breached that target — which refers to an average global temperature of 1.5°C over decades — but C3S now expects the world to exceed the Paris goal around 2030.

“It’s basically around the corner now,” Buontempo said.

Hottest June on Record, every fraction of temperature increase fuels extreme weather.

In October, catastrophic flash floods killed hundreds of people in Spain, record wildfires tore through Peru, and flooding in Bangladesh destroyed more than 1 million tons of rice, sending food prices skyrocketing. In the US, Hurricane Milton was also worsened by human-caused climate change.

C3S’ records go back to 1940, which are cross-checked with global temperature records going back to 1850.