Japan's summer in 2024 was already the hottest on record - equaling the level seen in 2023 - while autumn was the hottest since records began.PHOTO: NORIKO HAYASHI/NYTIMES
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Japan says 2024 was the hottest year on record.
TOKYO - Japan's meteorological agency said on January 6 that 2024 will be the hottest year since records began, mirroring other nations, as increasing greenhouse gas emissions fuel climate change.
Worldwide, 2024 is expected to be the hottest year on record, the United Nations weather and climate agency said last week, ending a decade of unprecedented heat and other types of extreme weather.
Across the country, average temperatures from January to December were 1.48 degrees Celsius higher than the average from 1991 to 2020, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
This was the highest figure since the agency began releasing data in 1898 and higher than the previous year's record, which exceeded the average by 1.29 degrees Celsius.
In the long term, “Japan's temperature has been rising at a rate of 1.40 degrees Celsius per century, and high temperatures have been observed especially since the 1990s,” said the JMA.
Mr. Kaoru Takahashi, the JMA official in charge of meteorological information, told AFP that climate change is a “factor.”
The westerly currents - prevailing winds from west to east - have also shifted further north, bringing warmer air, he said.
Japan's summer in 2024 was already the hottest on record - equaling the level seen in 2023 - while autumn was the warmest since records began.
Mount Fuji's famous snow cover was also absent for the longest period on record in 2024, not appearing until early November, compared to the average for early October.
Scientists say that climate change is intensifying the risk of heavy rainfall in Japan and elsewhere because a warmer atmosphere retains more water.
In September 2024, floods and landslides killed 16 people on the remote Noto peninsula in central Japan, an area that had already been hit by a major earthquake on January 1.
And in November, heavy rains led the authorities to call for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.
Other places, including India, Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Germany, and Brazil, also recorded record temperatures in 2024.
Greenhouse gas emissions have grown to new records, trapping more heat for the future, the World Meteorological Organization said last week.
Japan has the dirtiest energy mix among the advanced economies in the Group of Seven, activists say, with fossil fuels accounting for almost 70% of its power generation by 2023.
The Japanese government wants the country to be carbon neutral by 2050 and to reduce emissions by 46% by 2030 compared to 2013 levels in the world's fourth-largest economy.
According to the new plans announced in December, renewables will account for 40% to 50% of electricity by 2040, compared to around 23% in 2023. AFP
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