Fiasco could be the word that defines 2024, marked by high temperatures and a large number of extreme weather events
A year with three major global meetings on climate and nature, 2024 ends without important decisions but with more gas emissions, more climate catastrophes and, almost certainly, as
In terms of environmental action, ‘fiasco’ could be the word that defines 2024, marked by elevated temperatures e large number of extreme weather events – one of them , with a provisional balance of 226 deaths – despite warnings and well-intentioned speeches at various international meetings on climate and nature.
In November, Cali, Colombia, received the 16th UN conference on biodiversitysurrounded by great expectations because it was the first after the Montreal conference in which the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet by 2030.
It ended without the countries reaching an agreement on financing of the roadmap to stop the destruction of nature.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, as he has done in recent years, left warnings:
“Our world is getting hotter and more dangerous. And that’s not a matter of debate. It’s a matter of fact. We just had the hottest day, the hottest months, the hottest years and the hottest decade in history “.
Fight against desertification
And this month, another UN conference on the fight against desertification ended in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, without any major news.
There were warnings from António Guterres, a 2024 will be the hottest year everthe year in which the humanity consumed more oil, gas and coal and established a new record for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to estimates from scientific studies.
Extreme weather events
Em 2024, storms and torrential rain they killed hundreds of people in Honduras, Spain or Chad, Pakistan and China.
Droughts and fires devastated Ecuador and Mozambique, the capital of South Korea, Seoul, hit temperature recordsos oceans continued to overheatin Morocco and India dozens of people died due to heat waves unprecedented. And in the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca, almost 600 people died, most due to the heat.
In July, with the 21st being the hottest on record in the worldthe extreme heat caused “devastating impacts” on hundreds of millions of people, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which, in November, already warned that data up until then indicated that 2024 would be the hottest year ever measured.
“Humanity is setting the planet on fire,” commented Guterres.
And throughout the year there was no shortage of studies, alerts and warnings about the state of the planet, from experts warning about health threats caused by climate change, to the UN drawing attention to new records of GHG concentrations, to scientists warning that a third of tree species could become extinct, or to conclude that Earth’s vital signs have worsened and that the world is “on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster.”
The year began with demonstrations by farmers from several European countries, unhappy with Brussels’ policies, which they accused of imposing high-cost environmental measures in the name of the “green transition”.
On December 9th the program Copernicus took for granted that 2024 will be the hottest year since there are records and the first in which global warming will exceed 1.5 ºC above the average values of the pre-industrial era, a limit defined in 2015 in the Paris Agreement on reducing GHG emissions as the point at which climate change becomes irreversible and has devastating global impacts.
Between warnings and signs about climate change, which are an almost ignored topic at world conferences, in addition to generic and protocol declarations, the year was also marked by the Future Summit, held in September in New York, in which world leaders adopted three agreements with in future generations.
Despite the large deficit in effective application of nature protection measures on the ground, in the legislative area, 2024 saw the and in Portugal the creation of the Algarve-Pedra do Valado Marine Natural Park and the attribution of the status of protected marine area covering 30% of the Azores sea.
