Los Angeles Wildfires – rawpixel.com / U.S. Department of Agriculture Creative Commons licence
2024: First the bad news!
Last year was declared the hottest year on record and the first calendar year to pass the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. At the time the Paris Agreement was signed 10 years ago, scientists projected we might reach this threshold by the 2040s if we continued at the then rate of CO2 emissions. Now we’re facing it decades earlier, a dire warning that the climate crisis is accelerating far faster than anticipated.
The increase in global temperature has been causally linked to more extreme weather conditions, with more violent storms, catastrophic flooding, drought and extreme temperatures taking their toll around the world. Between January and November 2024 there were 24 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. 2024’s most costly climate disasters killed 2,000 people and caused $229bn in damages
Atmospheric CO2 in parts per million, 31 December 2024, was 427.2 ppm. In 2023 it was 422.38 ppm. It’s not going down yet!
Now the good news.
The ozone hole above Antarctica is continuing to close. This year’s ozone hole aligns with the 1979–2021 averages—a very encouraging sign that the ozone layer continues to heal, and a demonstration that concerted international action can have major positive effects.
The number of Electric Vehicles worldwide reached 85 million, redefining transportation and driving down emissions.
Renewables overtook coal as an energy source. Solar, wind, and hydropower together are now the largest sources of global electricity generation.
Green jobs are booming. Demand for eco-focused workers grew 11.6% in 2024, fuelling a sustainability economy.
The EU managed to grow its economy while reducing emissions. Emissions fell by 4% in Q1 and 2.6% in Q2, while GDP grew by 0.3% and 1%, respectively, compared to the same quarters in 2023. This demonstrates that climate action and economic growth can go hand in hand—but we need to accelerate these efforts to meet the urgency of the climate crisis.
Solar energy is set to meet half of global electricity demand growth.
Advanced tools are driving rapid methane emission reductions, tackling one of the most potent greenhouse gases.
Battery storage capacity is expanding eightfold, paving the way for a resilient, renewable-powered future.
Now to 2025: The bad news
The wildfires raging in California provide a stark reminder of the ongoing effects of climate change. Prolonged drought set the base conditions for wildfires to start, and intense winds whipped the flames and spread the fires across the state. The scale and cost of the destruction is already breaking records and the fires are yet to be contained and extinguished.
With the election of Donald Trump, a climate denier and extraction-industry evangelist, to lead the US – already ranked as the world’s second-largest emitter – prospects for reining in consumption are bleak. However, the momentum behind action on climate change is unlikely to be derailed by a single presidential term.
We might not see the massive price spikes of 2022 and 2023, but climate change will continue to make food more costly to produce. About a third of recent UK food inflation is estimated to come from climate impacts.
Worldwide, climate changes will see more damage to people’s homes and environments, greater food insecurity, poorer water security, inflation and rising temperatures. Mass displacement of people and falling living standards will cause increasing instability in global politics.
Good news for 2025
This year will probably be slightly cooler due to a declining El Niño effect, but still hotter than every single other year in human history aside from 2023 and 2024. It will probably be a couple of years before world temperatures exceed 1.5°C again but this increase is already ‘baked in’ by the emissions already released.
Sometime in the next few months, the international court of justice (ICJ) is set to issue a major ruling on “the obligations of states in respect of climate change”. The court may rule that states are obliged to take full stewardship of the environment for both present and future generations. This ruling would tie climate action more closely with human rights, and will hopefully lead to those who continue, knowingly, to further climate change facing prosecution.
Expect huge progress on renewable energy, as costs tumble and efficiency increases. EV batteries will get cheaper, more powerful and less reliant on scarce chemicals. Solar panels will become cheaper and more efficient, and grid storage will enable the bumps in renewable generation to be smoothed out.
A global agreement on plastic pollution is set to be in place in 2025, and the next set of global emissions targets will be discussed. The Brazilian city of Belém will host this year’s UN climate summit, Cop30, in November, and hopefully the continuing unfolding climate disasters will focus attention on solutions rather than excuses.
We live in hope!
Phil Shotton,
Ramsgate Society Lead on Environment and Climate Change
