Global summer temperatures hit record high
Global average temperatures during the three summer months this year were the highest ever recorded, breaking the record set last year, the European Copernicus Observatory announced on Friday.
“Over the past three months, the planet has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day and the hottest northern hemisphere summer,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy head of Copernicus’ Climate Change Service.
This series of records increases the probability that 2024 will be the hottest year on record.
Several countries such as Spain, Japan and Australia and several provinces of China announced this week that they had measured historic heat levels for August.
Unprecedented temperatures
On a global level, August 2024 equals the temperature record for an August, set in 2023, and is 1.51° C above the average pre-industrial climate. It is above the 1.5° C threshold that constitutes the most ambitious objective of the 2015 Paris Agreement. This threshold has been broken in 13 of the past 14 months, according to Copernicus data.
Copernicus records date back to 1940, but these average temperatures are unprecedented for at least 120,000 years, according to paleoclimatology data, established using ice and sediment cores.
"The planet has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day and the hottest northern hemisphere summer"
Meanwhile, a study has shown that women are generally more concerned about the state of the environment than men. The survey was conducted on behalf of the international environmental organisations Earth4All and the Global Commons Alliance.
It found that 62 per cent of women are very seriously concerned about the state of nature, compared to 56 per cent of men.
A third of men think claims about environmental risks are exaggerated, compared to a quarter of women. Women are also less likely to believe that technology can solve environmental problems without people changing their lifestyles.
Regardless of gender, almost three quarters of respondents think it is a good idea to prosecute governments or business leaders for approving actions that cause serious damage to nature and the climate. In the Belgian penal code that was approved in February, this provision was included under the heading of ecocide.
The researchers surveyed 22,000 adults in 22 countries, including 18 of the G20 nations.
A road worker drinks water on a construction site during a heatwave in southern California, 4 September 2024 © PHOTO ETIENNE LAURENT / AFP
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