NAIROBI, Kenya – The planet has just marked a “shocking” new milestone, enduring 12 consecutive months of unprecedented heat, according to new data from Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service.
Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus, described the 12-month heat streak as “shocking but not surprising,” attributing it to human-caused climate change.
He warned of worse to come unless planet-warming fossil fuel pollution is drastically reduced.
“This string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold,” Buontempo cautioned.
The release of Copernicus’ data coincided with an impassioned speech by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in New York, where he lambasted fossil fuel companies as the “godfathers of climate chaos” and for the first time, explicitly called on all countries to ban advertising their fossil fuel products.
Guterres urged world leaders to swiftly tackle the spiraling climate crisis or face dangerous tipping points.
“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” he said. “We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell.”
Copernicus’ data showed each month since July 2023 has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels, when large-scale fossil fuel burning began.
Over the past 12 months, the average global temperature was 1.63 degrees above these pre-industrial levels.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
While this aim refers to long-term averages rather than a single month or year, scientists consider the recent breach an alarming signal.
“This is a harbinger of progressively more dangerous climate impacts close on the horizon,” said Richard Allan, a climate professor at the University of Reading in the UK.
The news comes as the western US experiences its first heat wave of the summer with temperatures soaring into the triple digits.
In India, dozens have died over the past few weeks as temperatures pushed toward 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit); brutal temperatures in Southeast Asia have led to deaths, school closures, and shriveled crops; and in Mexico, howler monkeys have dropped dead from trees due to the heat.
Hotter air and oceans also fuel heavier rainfall and destructive storms, like those that have battered the United States, Brazil, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates this year.
Guterres placed the blame for the climate crisis squarely on fossil fuel companies that “rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies,” accusing them of distorting the truth and deceiving the public.
He called on every country to ban fossil fuel ads, likening it to advertising bans on harmful products like tobacco.
He urged immediate action, including substantial cuts in planet-heating pollution and an end to new coal projects.
He also pushed rich countries to commit to quitting coal by 2030, reducing oil and gas use by 60% by 2035, and increasing funding for the poorest, most climate-vulnerable nations.
“We cannot accept a future where the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles, while the rest of humanity is lashed by lethal weather in unlivable lands,” Guterres concluded.
