Warning signs on climate flashing bright red

Pace and intensity of global warming reaches uncharted territory, writes Marlowe Hood

- Marlowe Hood

From carbon pollution to sea-level rise to global heating, the pace and level of key climate change indicators are all in unchartered territory, more than 60 top scientists warned yesterday.

Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation hit a new high in 2024 and averaged, over the last decade, a record 53.6 billion tonnes per year — that’s 100,000 tonnes per minute — of CO2 or its equivalent in other gases, they reported in a peer-reviewed update.

Earth's surface temperature last year breached 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time, and the additional CO2 humanity can emit with a two-thirds chance of staying under that threshold long-term — our 1.5C “carbon budget” — will be exhausted in a couple of years, they calculated.

Investment in clean energy outpaced investment in oil, gas and coal last year two-to-one, but fossil fuels account for more than 80% of global energy consumption, and growth in renewables still lags behind new demand.

Included in the 2015 Paris climate treaty as an aspirational goal, the 1.5C limit has since been validated by science as necessary for avoiding a catastrophically climate-addled world.

The hard cap on warming to which nearly 200 nations agreed was “well below” two degrees, commonly interpreted to mean 1.7C to 1.8C.