
Fresh evidence of global warming - as politicians question climate action
Fresh evidence today has set out how quickly the Earth's climate is changing - in some places so fast it has shocked scientists.
The new report arrives as the UK's long-standing political consensus on tackling climate change fractures - with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch questioning the necessary pace of climate action - and as President Donald Trump seeks to scrap US climate rules.
The new analysis from the United Nations's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) today found that 2024 was the hottest on records going back 175 years.
Each of the last 10 years has been in the top 10 warmest years on record - a trend that is unprecedented, as previously such a time period has always been punctuated by colder years.
"That has never happened before, going back to 1850," said Prof Chris Hewitt, director of climate services at the WMO.
The team were also shocked by the way the final months of 2024 remained hot, even as the natural warming effect of the transient El Nino weather phenomenon subsided.
The fact the "warmth continued for so long" even the world moved to more neutral conditions after El Nino has been "really quite extraordinary" said Dr John Kennedy, lead author of the WMO's State of the Global Climate Report for 2024.
It also found:
Concentrations of carbon dioxide - the key driver of global warming - are at the highest levels in the last 800,000 years.
Each of the past eight years has smashed new records for heat in the oceans
The 18 lowest levels of sea ice in the Arctic in summer have all been in the past 18 years
Glaciers have lost more ice in the last three years than in any other three-year period on record
The rate of sea level rise has doubled since satellite measurements began.
The UK Met Office's Prof Stephen Belcher said the earth is "profoundly ill. Many of the vital signs are sounding alarms".
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the planet is "issuing more distress signals" and urged leaders to "step up" with new national climate plans due this year.
Meanwhile, some leaders are going cold on climate action, with President Trump pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement, and Argentina walking away from global talks last year.
However, the UK's climate envoy on Tuesday struck a more optimistic note, saying other countries are still talking about how to go green, not if they should.
China, the world's largest emitter, installed more wind and solar power last year than ever before, and in 2023 as much solar power as the world combined.
But last year's heat drove extreme weather events that forced more people from their homes than in any year since 2008, destroying critical infrastructure, forests, farmland and biodiversity too.
In the United States, Hurricanes Helene and Milton brought damage costing tens of billions of dollars and killed more than 200 people.
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Tropical Cyclone Chido killed at least 100 and inflicted costly damage on Mozambique, Malawi and French island Mayotte. It displaced around 100,000 people in Mozambique.
Bob Ward, from the London School of Economics's climate institute, said: "This analysis shows that even the United States, the richest country in the world, cannot escape these growing impacts... which are causing suffering for increasing numbers of Americans."
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BBC News
20 hours ago
- BBC News
Skipton cellist visits Arctic to record sounds of climate change
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BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Trump-Musk row fuels 'biggest crisis ever' at Nasa
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All sectors have been earmarked for savings, apart from an effort to send astronauts to Mars, which has received a $100m (£736,000) to Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Pasadena-based Planetary Society, which promotes space exploration, the potential cuts represent "the biggest crisis ever to face the US space programme". Nasa has said that its request to reduce its overall budget by nearly a quarter "aligns (its) science and technology portfolios to missions essential for the exploration of the Moon and Mars".Dr Adam Baker, a space analyst at Cranfield University told BBC News that if these proposals are approved by Congress, it would fundamentally shift the agency's focus."President Trump is repurposing Nasa for two things: to land astronauts on the Moon before the Chinese and to have astronauts plant a US flag on Mars. Everything else is secondary." Those who back the proposals say the White House's budget has given Nasa a clear purpose, for the first time since the days of the Apollo Moon landings of the 1960s and 70s, when the aim was to beat the Soviet Union to the Moon. Nasa's critics say that since then the space agency has become a bloated, unfocussed bureaucracy which routinely goes massively over budget in its space missions and wastes taxpayer's money. One of the most egregious examples of this is Nasa's new rocket for its plans to return American astronauts to the Moon, the Space Launch System (SLS). Its development has been delayed, and costs have spiralled such that it costs $4.1bn (£3.3bn) for each and every launch. By contrast, SpaceX's equivalent rocket system, Starship, is estimated to cost around $100m (£80m) per launch because it is designed to be reusable. Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin space company promises similar savings for its proposed New Glenn no one's surprise, SLS will be phased out under the White House proposals, in the hope that Starship and New Glenn can take its place. But the past three development launches of Starship have been unsuccessful, and Blue Origin has only recently begun to test its Moon rocket."The worry is that Nasa may be jumping out of the frying pan, into the fire," says Dr Barber."The development of these alternatives to SLS is being bankrolled by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. "If they lose their appetite for this endeavor and SpaceX or Blue Origin say they need more money to develop their systems, Congress will have to give it to them," says Dr Barber. Of greater concern, says Dr Barber, is the potential loss of 40 missions to explore other planets and to monitor the impact of climate change on Earth from space, many of which involve collaborations with international partners."I think it is very sad that what has taken so long to build can be knocked down with a wrecking ball so quickly with no plan to rebuild it afterwards."The projects facing the axe include dozens of planetary missions already in space for which most of the development and launch costs have already been paid for, with relatively small savings proposed on their operating costs. Also under threat are two collaborations with the European Space Agency: An ambitious plan to bring martian rocks collected by Nasa's Perseverance Rover back to Earth and a mission to send Europe's Rosalind Franklin Rover to the red planet to search for signs of past Sir Martin Sweeting, head of the UK space firm Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, and co-author of a Royal Society report on the future of space says that while the development was "unwelcome", there may be an upside for Europe as it takes greater responsibility for its own space exploration programme."Maybe we have been too reliant on Nasa the big player to carry a lot of the emphasis in space," he told BBC News."It is an opportunity to think about how Europe wants to get a better balance in its space activities."But there is much more downside for Europe in the short term. As well as the return of Mars samples and its Rover, ESA risks reduced access to the International Space Station if it is wound down, and the budget cuts cancel Nasa's extensive contributions to its successor, the Lunar Gateway, a multinational space station planned for orbit around the Moon. In its recently published strategy ESA stated it "will be seeking to build a more autonomous space capability, and to continue being a reliable, strong and desirable partner with space agencies from around the globe," with the implication that it would do so with or without facing cuts are numerous current and proposed Earth Observation programmes according to Dr Baker."These Earth observation programmes are our canary in the coal mine," he told BBC News."Our ability to predict the impact of climate change and mitigate against it could be drastically reduced. If we turn off this early warning system it is a frightening prospect".The budget proposals have yet to be approved by Congress. The planetary Society's Casey Dreier has told BBC News that many Republicans have told lobbyists privately that they are prepared to vote against the Mr Dreier worries that there is a strong possibility that political gridlock might mean that no budget will be agreed. It is likely that the reduced White House budget would be put in place as an interim measure, which could then not easily be reversed, because once space missions are turned off it is hard, if not impossible, to start them up again.


BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
Oxford study finds 'extraordinary' tremors caused by tsunamis
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