Human impact exposed: 41 days of ‘dangerous’ heat linked to climate change in 2024, says report

Human-caused climate change added an average of 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, harming human health and ecosystems, an analysis for a year-in-review has found.

The report by World Weather Attribution and Climate Central reviews a year of extreme weather. It warns that every country must prepare for rising climate risks to minimise deaths and damages in 2025 and beyond.

The report also highlights that a much faster transition away from fossil fuels is needed to avoid a future of relentless heatwaves, drought, wildfires, storms and floods.

Among other key findings, the report revealed that climate change intensified 26 of the 29 weather events studied by World Weather Attribution that killed at least 3700 people and displaced millions.

Climate change had a stronger influence than El Niño on many extreme weather events, it said.

The report said that 2024 is set to be the hottest on record. The first six months saw record-breaking temperatures, extending the streak started in 2023 to 13 months, with the world’s hottest day in history recorded on July 22.

The 41 days of ‘dangerous’ heat represent the top 10 per cent warmest temperatures from 1991-2020 for locations around the world, the report said. The result highlights how climate change is exposing millions more people to dangerous temperatures for longer periods of the year as fossil fuel emissions heat the climate.

Dangerous heat days will continue to increase

If the world does not rapidly transition away from oil, gas and coal, the number of dangerous heat days will continue to increase each year and threaten public health, the scientists said.

“The impacts of fossil fuel warming have never been clearer or more devastating than in 2024. We are living in a dangerous new era. Extreme weather killed thousands of people, forced millions from their homes this year and caused unrelenting suffering," Dr Friederike Otto, lead of WWA and Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at Imperial College London was quoted as saying in the report released on Friday.

“The floods in Spain, hurricanes in the US, drought in the Amazon, and floods across Africa are just a few examples,” Dr Otto said. 

World Weather Attribution is an international scientific collaboration that analyses and communicates the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events, such as storms, extreme rainfall, heatwaves, and droughts.

Climate Central is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives.