The World Meteorological Organization has confirmed that 2024 was earth’s hottest year ever recorded. The average global temperature of the past 12 months exceeded not only all historical records beginning in 1850, but also, for the first time ever, exceeded the important threshold of 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average. That goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C was set in the 2016 Paris Agreement, having been identified as a point where many catastrophic, irreversible climate impacts would be reached. The U.N. now admits that the Paris Agreement is “in grave danger.”
The result of these record-shattering statistics is clearly visible. Wildfires, heatwaves, drought, flooding, and extreme storms have resulted in deaths, forced displacement, and loss of livestock and agricultural production. Compared to 2023, food insecurity and undernourishment have worsened in many countries, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. Mass displacement related to extreme weather events and their effects on infrastructure, farmland, forests and biodiversity have touched all areas of the world.
But those in power, the politicians and wealthy business executives across the world, are unable and unwilling to do anything to address any of these existential issues. The 2024 annual United Nations Climate Change Conference focused on international investments and carbon markets—in other words, how to profit off of the climate catastrophe.
Realizing that we can’t rely on global rulers, people have continued to organize in the name of climate action throughout the past year. In 2024 alone, hundreds of thousands of people joined large protests and small actions in protest of the lack of action to stop the climate crisis. People have not given up hope. But as long as the capitalist bosses and politicians get to make the important decisions, no amount of protest will offer a real solution to the climate crisis. All of us regular people around the world, including the oppressed families, exploited workers, and everyone who is most affected by the climate crisis, can organize to take these decisions into our own hands. Only then can we really prioritize the global action that this catastrophe so urgently demands.
