UK hit with -20C temperatures as wildfires rage out of control in US all after hottest year on record

We’re only 10 days into 2025 but the UK has already seen -20C temperatures, while wildfires rage out of control in the US. This all comes as 2024 was officially revealed to be the first year to breach the key global warming threshold - of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirmed previous projections that 2024 was the warmest on record globally, becoming the first calendar year to see an average temperature exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

And the scientists said human-caused climate change was the primary driver for the record temperatures, while other factors such as the Pacific Ocean’s “El Nino” weather phenomenon, also had an effect. Experts are also sure the continued rise in temperatures is not set to end any time soon.

Last year was the 11th year in succession that saw global temperatures equal or exceed 1C above pre-industrial levels. It beat the previous record, set in 2023, and all of the last 10 years features in the list of the warmest years ever recorded. The planet is warming up.

Colin Morice, from the Met Office, said: “A single year exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial does not mean a breach of the Paris Agreement 1.5C guard rail – that would require a temperature of at least 1.5C on average over a longer period. However, it does show that the headroom to avoid an exceedance of 1.5C, over a sustained period, is now wafer thin.”

Dr Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said: “This record needs to be a reality check. The climate is heating to levels we’ve spent years trying to avoid because countries are still burning huge amounts of oil, gas and coal. A year of extreme weather showed just how dangerous life is at 1.5C.

“The Valencia floods, US hurricanes, Philippines typhoons and Amazon drought are just four disasters last year that were worsened by climate change. There are many, many more.”

Pursuing efforts to prevent the world warming more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures is one of the key commitments of the global Paris Treaty, which countries agreed to in 2015, in a bid to avert the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

The UK analysis found the global average temperature in 2024 was 1.53C above the 1850-1900 average, with a margin of error of plus or minus 0.08C, making it likely the first calendar year to exceed 1.5C.

Samantha Burgess, from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) which runs C3S, said: “We are now teetering on the edge of passing the 1.5C level defined in the Paris Agreement and the average of the last two years is already above this level.

“These high global temperatures, coupled with record global atmospheric water vapour levels in 2024, meant unprecedented heatwaves and heavy rainfall events, causing misery for millions of people.”