We could hardly recover from the record-breaking heat last month. Meanwhile, a UN report pleads: “No more hot air, please!”

After an unprecedented streak of 15 consecutive months of global warming records, the planet has finally caught a bit of a break: September didn’t go down in history as another record breaker.

Yet it was still the second warmest September on record since 1880. And today the United Nations released a report There remains a large gap between countries’ commitments to limit further global warming and what they have actually done.

The earth fever subsides slightly

After August continued the string of record-warm months, September finally seems to have ushered in a modest change. From NASA’s billEarth’s average surface temperature was 1.26 degrees Celsius, or about 2.27 degrees Fahrenheit, above the long-term average for the month of 1951-1980. That is several tenths of a degree less than the record-breaking mark from September 2023.

Today NOAA released theirs own analysiswith essentially the same results. NOAA also notes Year-to-date, the global average temperature was the highest such period on record, with North America, South America, Europe and Africa each leading the way. (Both agencies were delayed in releasing their monthly reports because Hurricane Helene caused significant damage to infrastructure, impacting global data collection operations in the region Asheville, North Carolina.)

Despite the Despite the long-awaited break in the heat wave, 2024 as a whole will almost certainly still break the record for warmest year.

“Given the (delayed) September data now available, the updated forecast is that there will almost certainly be a new annual record in surface temperature in 2024, possibly by more than 0.1°C.” wrote Gavin Schmidt from NASA on the social media platform Bluesky. He also says there is a 50 percent chance that the annual average surface temperature will be 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures.

This is important because under the Paris AgreementAlmost all nations in the world (including the United States) have committed to limiting human-caused global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C. Every tenth of a degree of warming counts. In addition, the 1.5 degree threshold is exceeded would probably bring more frequent heat waves, droughts, forest fires, heavy rainfall and floods. Multiple climatic tipping points could also be triggered, shifting Earth systems from a relatively stable state to a completely different state, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

In fact, we have already experienced a 12-month period in which the Earth’s average surface temperature remained above the threshold. It happened from July 2023 to June 2024, with a global average temperature of 1.64 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900. as calculated from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service.

But it is still too early to declare the Paris Agreement a failure. Its goals are measured in a decade or more. Over a shorter period of months or even a year or so, natural climate fluctuations push temperatures up and down. And until recently, temperatures actually experienced an increase due to the climate phenomenon El Niño. El Niño has now subsided and a cooling La Niña phase is beginning probably develop in the period September-November.

But in the long term, we are a long way from limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the long term, the UN report says. Actually, Greenhouse gas emissions rose to a new high of 57.1 billion tons in 2023 (expressed in “Carbon dioxide equivalent“).

To stay below the threshold, emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases must be reduced quickly and significantly – a Reduction of 7.5 percent per year by 2035. “Current promises are nowhere near this level, putting us on track to achieve a best-case global warming of 2.6°C this century and one in the future “requiring costly and large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reduce the excess,” writes Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, in the foreword to the report.

She made the pointed appeal to the national delegations that will meet in Azerbaijan next month for the United Nations climate negotiations: “No more hot air, please.”