PEOPLE around the world suffered an average of 41 extra days of dangerous heat this year because of human-caused climate change, according to a group of scientists.

They also said that climate change had worsened much of the world's damaging weather throughout 2024.

The analysis by World Weather Attribution and Climate Central researchers comes at the end of a year that shattered climate record after climate record as heat across the globe made 2024 likely to be its hottest ever measured and a slew of other fatal weather events spared few.

World Weather Attribution head Friederike Otto, an Imperial College climate scientist, said: “The finding is devastating but utterly unsurprising: climate change did play a role, and often a major role, in most of the events we studied, making heat, droughts, tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall more likely and more intense across the world, destroying lives and livelihoods of millions and often uncounted numbers of people.

“As long as the world keeps burning fossil fuels, this will only get worse.”

Millions of people endured stifling heat this year. Northern California and Death Valley baked. Sizzling daytime temperatures scorched Mexico and Central America. Heat endangered already vulnerable children in west Africa. 

Skyrocketing southern European temperatures forced Greece to close the Acropolis. In south and south-east Asian countries, heat forced school closures. 

Earth experienced some of the hottest days ever measured and its hottest-yet summer, with a 13-month heat streak that just barely broke.

Kristina Dahl, vice-president of climate science at Climate Central, said: “The poorest, least developed countries on the planet are the places that are experiencing even higher numbers.”

Dr Otto said: “Heatwaves are by far the deadliest extreme event and they are the extreme events where climate change is a real game-changer.”

This year was a warning that the planet is getting dangerously close to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming limit compared to the pre-industrial average, according to the scientists. 

Earth is expected to soon edge past that threshold, although it’s not considered to have been breached until that warming is sustained over decades.

Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre director of programmes Julie Arrighi, who was one of the researchers, said: “Countries can reduce those impacts by preparing for climate change and adapting for climate change, and while the challenges faced by individual countries or systems or places vary around the world, we do see that every country has a role to play.”