Dystopian as it may sound, but amidst the Kumbh, Donald Trump’s re-election, deportations of undocumented immigrant Indians from the US, rise of right-wing politics in Europe, the world silently breached an extremely dubious, to the extent of existential, threshold. For the first time in recorded history, global average temperatures in 2024 went past the critical 1.5°C limit above pre-industrial levels, which was long held as the point from when the earth gradually becomes uninhabitable for humans and most nonhumans. This calamitous development did not receive much media attention, which was zestfully engaged in more urgent matters
So, what really happened and why should we be appalled? According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the global temperatures was approximately 1.6°C higher in 2024 than in the 1850-1900 baseline period, making it the hottest year ever recorded. The past ten years – 2015-2024 – are the ten warmest years on record, with 2024 eventually culminating into a record-breaking year. A stark reminder of how rapidly we are accelerating towards a climate breakdown. Though a single year exceeding this threshold does not mean the average temperature of the earth has increased permanently by 1.5°C goal as an average of at least 10 to 20 years is needed for a conclusive assertion about it, this development signals how little time remains to reverse course. More so, because 2030 was earlier projected to be the year when the 1.5°C threshold was expected to be breached for the first time.
This “climate breakdown”, as UN chief António Guterres described it, wasn’t entirely unexpected. Scientists have been warning us about it for a while. But more alarming is what coincides with this watershed moment – a global pledge to move away from climate action by right-wing leaders of all hues. Some of these right-wing leaders have assumed office already while others are dangerously close to doing so. This resurgence of right-wing political movements in key economies – notably in the US, Germany and India – threatens to dismantle whatever progress has been made in mitigating climate change and even may reverse it. These philosophies share a common hostility toward climate policies and sustainability efforts, and their ascendance raises grave concerns that the world may enter a new era of climate inaction precisely when the opposite is needed.
Also read: Urgency, Implications and India: A Conversation with J. Srinivasan on Climate Change
In the US, Trump – who once called climate change a ‘hoax’ – and his politics have been centred around rolling back climate policies. He has withdrawn the country from the Paris Agreement twice. His party is slashing funds for NASA’s climate research, weakening the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and pushing for aggressive expansion of oil and gas drilling. The US – despite trying to shift the blame to China – remains one of the largest GHG emitters in the world, along with Australia, Canada, Russia. Per capita GHG emission in the US in 2023 was 17.2 tonnes against China’s 9.8 tonnes (the largest per-capita GHG emitters in the world are Arab countries but their collective population size is modest).
Germany has been climate conscious over the past decades and pioneers in renewable energy research but the rise of far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) threatens their future too. The party is openly campaigning against renewable energy, calling for the dismantling of wind farms and continuing coal, threatening to reverse decades of Germany’s progress under the Energiewende framework. If the AfD gains more influence, Germany’s role as a leader in renewable energy could be severely compromised, with ripple effects across the European Union.
How are we, in India, performing? Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has increasingly prioritised economic expansion over sustainability. The result? Out of 100 most polluted cities in the world, 83 were in India in 2023. Seven others were from Pakistan and Bangladesh combined, making South Asia the home of 90 most polluted cities in the world out of 100. Interestingly, except Delhi NCR, all these are smaller towns, especially where various tax and pollution havens have been created for the industry in the name of boosting local economies of these semi-rural areas. Very few – less than half a dozen – of these 83 towns were in the Southern part of India. Weakening of environmental regulations to spur industrial growth has already produced catastrophic environmental outcomes – the government’s policy shift away from sustainability is evident in its lack of urgency in tackling air pollution, deforestation and water shortages. Ironically, India, one of the most climate-vulnerable countries, stands to lose the most from this political direction.
Amid this broader right-wing hostility toward climate action, the Indian state of Kerala stands out. The state retained its top ranking in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) India Index brought out by the Niti Aayog in 2023-24. Kerala also topped the index in 2020-21. While there is significant criticism over the methodology of such an index in the first place, by the Niti Ayog’s own admission, Kerala is the best performer when it comes to SDGs. Over the years, Kerala has consistently performed better than the rest of India on various social and environmental indicators as well, data reveals. It has pioneered decentralised planning, community-led conservation efforts and robust climate adaptation measures.
The contrast is telling: sustainability isn’t at odds with economic growth or governance; rather, it is fundamentally tied to human well-being. The right-wing argument that environmental regulations hurt development is a convenient excuse for unchecked exploitation. If anything, the global right-wing agenda isn’t pro-capitalist; it is anti-humanity and anti-Earth. The implications of this rightward shift can be catastrophic the rest of the world, a forecast that looks ominously and palpably possible. Climate projections indicate that without rapid mitigation efforts, global temperatures could rise by 2.7°C or more by the end of the century. This would lead to more frequent and intense heatwaves, devastating floods, crop failures, and rising sea levels that will displace millions. With staunchly right wing governments at the helm of affairs, there is a very real threat that this threshold might be breached sooner, just like the 1.5°C level, which was breached six years earlier.
Unfortunately, developing countries like India will bear most of the brunt of these impacts, simply because of its location in the tropics which will be worst affected by climate change and because it has a very large number of climate vulnerable population – about 50% of its population or 700 million – which is double the population of the US. Extreme heat is already making parts of the country uninhabitable, while erratic monsoons threaten food security for over a billion people. Across fragile ecosystems like the coasts or high mountains, disaster incidences have increased manifold including cyclonic storms, landslides, flash floods. Then there are slow-onset ecoclimatic shifts such as rise in vector-borne diseases, worsening soil and water quality, water shortages, increasing urban-heat island effects and deadly air pollution – all early warnings of what may follow if decisive action is not taken. Wildfires in Loss Angeles were just a trailer of things to come.
Also read: The Climate Reckoning: Who’s Accountable for the Future of the Planet?
The irony is inescapable: while the right-wing claims to champion national sovereignty and security, and promotes patriotism through endless propaganda, their disregard for climate science and severe impacts on the people is actively making nations like India more vulnerable to internal instability, economic losses and humanitarian crises. The 1.5°C is not just an abstract scientific threshold; it marks a turning point following which climate disruptions will become more frequent, severe and unpredictable.
However, the worst outcomes are still avoidable, if aggressive decarbonisation policies are implemented now, global warming can still be limited to below 2°C. Instead of promoting individual profits, trickle-down and destructive development pathways, collective wellbeing needs to be at the centre of the governments’ policies and philosophies. If 2024 fails to ring the alarm bells, it will remain a historical milestone when we crossed into the existential tipping point but were too self-absorbed to care because our global leaders told us everything from immigration to tariffs, ‘largest human gathering’ to being Vishwaguru were more important than climate change and how it can obliterate the human civilisation.
Aditya Ghosh is a human geographer who examines sustainability challenges across postcolonial geographies amidst rapid climatic changes. He is a Fellow at the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester.
