The European Union's (EU) Climate Service has announced that global warming has exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius for an entire year for the first time.
According to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, warming reached 1.52 degrees in the period from February 2023 to January 2024.
In 2015, world leaders pledged to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"This is far beyond anything that is acceptable," Bob Watson, a former head of the UN's climate body, told BBC Radio 4's Today Program.
The world's sea surface has also reached the highest average temperature ever recorded.
Scientists agree that the world is experiencing its hottest period since modern records began to be kept and is likely to last much longer.
