High temperatures in Jamaica four times likely because of climate change - report

(AP) - The last 12 months were the hottest Earth has ever recorded and Jamaica emerged the country where climate change was most powerfully at work, according to new report by Climate Central, a nonprofit science research group.

The peer-reviewed report says burning gasoline, coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels that release planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide, and other human activities, caused the unnatural warming from November 2022 to October 2023.

Over the course of the year, 7.3 billion people, or 90 per cent of humanity, endured at least 10 days of high temperatures that were made at least three times more likely because of climate change.

On average, Jamaica experienced high temperatures made four times more likely by climate change during the last 12 months. 

According to the report, Jamaica had the highest average Climate Shift Index of the 175 countries analysed - 4.5 out of a maximum of 5.

That made Jamaica the country where "human-caused climate change" was most powerfully at work.

The index indicates how climate change has altered the frequency of both the daily high and low temperatures at any location around the world, the group explained. 

“People know that things are weird, but they don't they don't necessarily know why it's weird. They don't connect back to the fact that we're still burning coal, oil and natural gas,” said Andrew Pershing, a climate scientist at Climate Central.

“I think the thing that really came screaming out of the data this year was nobody is safe. Everybody was experiencing unusual climate-driven heat at some point during the year,” said Pershing.

The average global temperature was 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the pre-industrial climate, which scientists say is close to the limit countries agreed not to go over in the Paris Agreement — a 1.5 C (2.7 Fahrenheit) rise.

The impacts were apparent as one in four humans, or 1.9 billion people, suffered from dangerous heat waves.

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