2024 was China's hottest year on record: weather agency

by Sam Davies, with Jing Xuan Teng in Shanghai

Last year was China's hottest on record and the past four years were its warmest ever, its weather agency said this week.

China is the leading emitter, in total volume, of the greenhouse gases driving global heating.

It aims to ensure carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions peak by 2030 and be brought to net zero by 2060.

The average national temperature for 2024 was 10.92 degrees Celsius (51.66 Fahrenheit) -- 1.03C. It was "the warmest year since the start of full records in 1961", the China Meteorological Administration said on its news site late on Wednesday.

"The top four warmest years ever were the past four years, with all top 10 warmest years since 1961 occurring in the 21st century," it added.

In 2024, China logged its hottest month in the history of observation in July, as well as the hottest August and the warmest autumn on record.

The United Nations said in a year-end message on Monday that 2024 was set to be the hottest year ever recorded worldwide.

Other countries also recorded temperature records in 2024.

India said on Wednesday 2024 was its hottest year since 1901, while Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday that the past year marked its second-warmest year since records began in 1910.

Germany's weather agency said in December that 2024 was the hottest year since records began 143 years ago.

The Czech weather service CHMI said on Thursday that 2024 was "by far the hottest" in Prague since records started in 1775, beating the previous records from 2018 and 2023 by 0.5 degrees.

"It is worth noting that of the 15 warmest years since 1775, 13 were in this century and all 15 after 1990," the CHMI said.

- Extreme weather -

Global warming, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, is not just about rising temperatures but the knock-on effect of all the extra heat in the atmosphere and seas.

Warmer air can hold more water vapor, and warmer oceans mean greater evaporation, resulting in more intense downpours and storms.

Impacts are wide-ranging, deadly and increasingly costly, damaging property and destroying crops.

In central Beijing, finance professional Xu Yici lamented that warmer-than-usual weather had affected the city's traditional winter pastime of ice skating.

"There's no ice in the Summer Palace. I was going to go ice skating at the Summer Palace but I didn't get to do it this year," Xu told AFP.

Dozens of people were killed and thousands evacuated during floods around the country last year.

In May, a highway in southern China collapsed after days of rain, killing 48 people.

Residents of the southern city of Guangzhou experienced a record-breaking long summer, with state media reporting there were 240 days where the average temperature was above 22C (71.6F), breaking the record of 234 days set in 1994.

Sichuan, Chongqing, and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River suffered from heat and drought in early autumn.

But Xue Weiya, an IT worker in Beijing, told AFP he believed "the Chinese government is doing a very good job of protecting the environment, so I don't think the weather... will have a big impact on us".

Globally, 2024 saw deadly flooding in Spain and Kenya, multiple violent storms in the United States and the Philippines, and severe drought and wildfires across South America.

Natural disasters caused $310 billion in economic losses in 2024, Zurich-based insurance giant Swiss Re has said.

Under the 2015 Paris climate accords, world leaders pledged to limit global heating to well below 2.0C above pre-industrial levels -- and to 1.5C if possible.

In November, the World Meteorological Organization said the 2024 January-September mean surface air temperature was 1.54C above the pre-industrial average measured between 1850 and 1900.

© Agence France-Presse