THE Earth recorded its hottest ever year in 2024 and crossed the key 1.5°C threshold, scientists said today.

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said the climate crisis was pushing temperatures to levels never experienced by modern humans, after the world experienced the first full year in which global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial times.

Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said: “The trajectory is just incredible,” as he described how every month in 2024 was the warmest or second warmest for that month since records began.

The Copernicus report said the planet’s average temperature last year was 1.6°C higher than in 1850-1900, the last half-century of the pre-industrial period before humans began burning CO2-emitting fossil fuels on a large scale.

This does not mean the internationally agreed 1.5°C warming threshold has been permanently breached, but Copernicus warned that point was drawing dangerously near.

Copernicus strategic climate lead Samantha Burgess said: “The primary reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere” from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

“As greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures continue to increase, including in the ocean, sea levels continue to rise and glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt.”

Soaring temperatures in 2024 eclipsed the previous year’s temperature in the European database by an eighth of a degree Celsius. 

Ms Burgess said: “The last 10 years are the 10 hottest on record and are likely the hottest in 125,000 years.”

July 10 was the hottest day recorded by humans, with the globe averaging 17.16°C, Copernicus found.

In 2015, nearly 200 nations agreed in Paris that limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels offered the best chance of preventing the most catastrophic repercussions of climate change.

But the world is nowhere near on track to meeting that target.

The effects of climate change are now visible on every continent, affecting people from the richest to the poorest countries on Earth.

Wildfires raging in California over the last week have killed at least 10 people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Last year, Bolivia and Venezuela suffered disastrous fires, while torrential floods hit Nepal, Sudan and Spain.

The Rainforest Action Network said this level of warming “could become irreversible,” adding: “We needed to end fossil fuel expansion yesterday.”

Greenpeace International said the big oil companies were responsible for pushing the planet past 1.5°C and it was “time to make them pay!”