With 2024 now officially declared the hottest year on record, and wildfires continuing to rage in California, the Australian Conservation Foundation says urgent action is needed to phase out fossil fuels globally.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed on Friday, previous projections that 2024 was the warmest on record globally and the first year the average temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
“This is what 1.5°C of global warming looks like,” said Annika Reynolds (they/them), ACF’s national climate policy adviser.
“Australia’s Black Summer, the severe wildfires in 2021 and 2022 across Europe and now LA’s horrific fires in the middle of winter. Climate change is driving a cascading series of unnatural disasters all around the globe.
“Australia is fuelling this crisis with its reckless fossil fuel exports and approvals. In 2024, Climate Analytics found Australia was the second largest exporter of climate pollution in the world.
“These complex, compounding and devastating climate disasters will only become more frequent and severe across the world unless we phase out the burning and export of fossil fuels.
“LA’s fires have started during an abnormally dry winter, just as our own Black Summer fires did five years ago, in what went on to become Australia's most catastrophic fire season. The similarity between smoke-enveloped downtown LA right now, and east coast cities across Australia five years ago, is an alarming reminder for those that lived through the Black Summer.
“This is all a terrifying glimpse of what could be the new normal if warming continues and 1.5°C becomes the new annual average temperature. But it is not yet too late, and the climate science is clear that there are narrow but remaining pathways to stay below the 1.5°C warming ceiling.
“We must cut emissions further and faster this decade to avert spiralling climate change.”
Header image: David McNew / Stringer, Getty Images