Reacting to the 2024 Global Climate highlights report by the WMO, Copernicus, Met Office, NASA, and other global climate monitoring organizations showing new climate extremes reached in 2024.[1] The report concludes that 2024 was the hottest year on record, with a new record high for daily global average temperature, plummeting ice sheet extent around Antarctica and the Arctic and rising carbon dioxide and methane levels, leading the world to cross the 1.5°C threshold for a full calendar year:
Ian Duff, Head of Greenpeace International's Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign said:
"Scientists are now putting numbers on what most of us already knew was a hell of a year, literally. From ongoing wildfires in California, to earlier disasters in India, Romania, Italy, Brazil and South Africa, homes were flooded, crops failed, and billions of people suffered from heat stress and breathed in toxic air. It's also been another year of ridiculous profits for the dirty oil and gas corporations fueling this crisis."
"Oil and gas corporations like Chevron, Exxon, Shell, or TotalEnergies cannot be trusted to voluntarily shift to clean and affordable renewable energy. In 2025 we demand governments to listen to the people and make polluters pay. Promises must turn into robust policies that will make polluting companies phase out fossil fuels and finance the loss and damage they cause."
In February 2025, Big Oil will announce another year of profits. At the same time, much of humanity is still reeling from record heatwaves, drought, unprecedented typhoon and hurricane seasons, and floods, all made worse by the climate crisis. Last year, Greenpeace International and Stamp Out Poverty published an analysis that shows that even a small tax on just seven of the world's biggest oil and gas companies could support communities and households worldwide in meeting the costs of the climate crisis.
John Noel, Senior Climate Campaigner at Greenpeace USA said:
"This grim milestone didn't occur in isolation. It's the result of deliberate obstruction by fossil fuel executives, their political allies, and the corporate elite they serve-blocking us from tackling the crisis at the scale it demands. We must dismantle the dangerous corporate delusion that fossil fuel expansion can continue without consequence. Instead, we must embrace the once in a lifetime opportunity to build the zero-carbon infrastructure needed for a safe future that includes everyone."
Philip Evans, Campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said:
"This grim report confirms what last year's unprecedented storms, floods and wildfires made obvious: world leaders are failing to take the action needed to tackle the climate crisis. While millions around the world – including here in the UK, have faced displacement and devastation by extreme weather, the fossil fuel giants driving the crisis have continued banking billions while derailing global climate talks and obstructing change.
"As the world's most powerful climate denier returns to the White House, others must take up the mantle of global climate leadership. The majority of Brits want our leaders to stand up to the oil bosses and force them to stop drilling and start paying for the damage they are causing to our planet and everyone living on it."
