The year 2024 is set to be the warmest on record, capping a decade of unprecedented heat fuelled by human activities, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. 

“Today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat. The top ten hottest years on record have happened in the last ten years, including 2024,” said Secretary-General António Guterres in his message for the New Year.  

“This is climate breakdown — in real time. We must exit this road to ruin — and we have no time to lose,” he gravely emphasised.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) will publish the consolidated global temperature figure for 2024 in January and its full State of the Global Climate 2024 report in March 2025.  

Climate catastrophes 

Throughout 2024, a series of reports from the WMO community highlighted the rapid pace of climate change and its far-reaching impacts on every aspect of sustainable development.

Record-breaking rainfalls were documented as well as catastrophic flooding, scorching heat waves with temperatures exceeding 50°C, and devastating wildfires.  

The organization found that climate change added 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, harming human health and ecosystems in their report When Risks Become Reality: Extreme Weather.  

Climate change also intensified 26 of the 29 weather events studied by World Weather Attribution that killed at least 3700 people and displaced millions. 

Celeste Saulo, the WMO Secretary-General, described the year as a sobering wake-up call. 

“This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent,” she stated.

“Every fraction of a degree of warming matters, and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks,” she underscored.  

Hope amid crises  

Despite the grim realities, the year 2024 saw notable advancements with the adoption of the Pact for the Future – a landmark agreement to promote disarmament, financial reform, gender equality, and ethical technological innovation.  

The COP29 UN climate conference also recently discussed ways to increase finance for poor countries to support them in coping with the impacts of extreme weather.  

Developing countries are responsible for a small amount of historic carbon emissions, but as WMO research has highlighted, are being hit the hardest by extreme weather. 

Moreover, in response to the Secretary-General’s Call to Action on Extreme Heat, a targeted group of experts representing 15 international organizations and 12 countries convened at WMO headquarters in December to advance a coordinated framework for tackling the growing threat of extreme heat.  

2025: A pivotal year  

With 2025 designated as the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, WMO and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) aim to prioritise efforts to protect the cryosphere – the Earth’s frozen regions, critical to regulating global temperatures.  

Additionally, WMO is advancing initiatives like the Global Greenhouse Gas Watch which aims to improve the monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) net fluxes globally.  

By 2027, the organization also aims to ensure universal protection from hazardous environmental events through life-saving anticipatory systems currently developed in the Early Warnings for All programme.  

Reflecting on WMO’s upcoming 75th anniversary, Ms. Saulo reinforced the shared responsibility to act.

“If we want a safer planet, we must act now. It’s our responsibility. It’s a common responsibility, a global responsibility,” she firmly stated.  

Guterres has also called for making 2025 “a new beginning” in his message for the New Year, issued on Monday as he urged countries to drastically slash emissions and ‘exit this road to ruin’.

Reflecting on 2024, he stated that “hope has been hard to find”, with wars causing enormous pain, suffering and displacement, and inequalities and divisions fuelling tensions and mistrust.

“And today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat,” he said

The Secretary-General noted that the top 10 hottest years on record have occurred in the past decade.

“This is climate breakdown — in real time.  We must exit this road to ruin — and we have no time to lose,” he said.

“In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions, and supporting the transition to a renewable future. It is essential — and it is possible.”

Hope drives change

Guterres said that even in the darkest days he has “seen hope power change.”

In this regard, he saluted activists of all ages who are raising their voices for progress, as well as “humanitarian heroes overcoming enormous obstacles to support the most vulnerable people.”

The Secretary-General said he also sees hope in developing countries fighting for financial and climate justice, and in the scientists and innovators breaking new ground for humanity.

He stressed that the Pact for Future, adopted last September by UN Member States, is a new push to build peace through disarmament and prevention.

Other aims include reforming the global financial system, pushing for more opportunities for women and youth, and ensuring that technologies “put people over profits and rights over runaway algorithms”.

Here, he also underlined the need to always stick to the values and principles enshrined by human rights, international law and the United Nations Charter.

The Secretary-General concluded by stating that there are no guarantees for what lies ahead in 2025.

He pledged to stand with all those working to forge a more peaceful, equal, stable and healthy future for all people.

“Together, we can make 2025 a new beginning,” he said. “Not as a world divided. But as nations united.”