2024 review: India's race against the climate crisis

Year 2024 is set to end as the hottest on record, marking the second consecutive year of unprecedented warming after 2023 claimed the same title.

- MANJUL PAUL

Escalating global warming is driving extreme weather events, resulting in significant human and economic losses. In India alone, 3,238 lives were lost to such events in the first nine months of the year, compared to 2,923 in the same period in 2023, according to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a think tank. Data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service shows that the average global temperature in nine out of the first 11 months in 2024 was already 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Scientists warn that extreme heat is likely to continue into early 2025. As a result, devastating droughts in Italy and South America, unprecedented floods in Africa and central Europe, and record-breaking heatwaves in Mexico and Asia were witnessed.

The CSE report said that 93% of the days this year until September recorded severe weather conditions, up from 86% in 2022 and 88% in 2023. The report noted several climate extremes for India in 2024: January was the ninth driest since 1901; February recorded the second-highest minimum temperature in 123 years; May saw the fourth-highest mean temperature on record; while July, August, and September registered their highest minimum temperatures since 1901.