2024 Was Japan's Hottest Year Ever, Official Says Climate Change A "Factor"

Japan's weather agency said Monday that last year was the hottest since records began, mirroring other nations as ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions fuel climate change.

Worldwide, 2024 was expected to have been the warmest recorded, the UN's weather and climate agency said last week, capping a decade of unprecedented heat and other types of extreme weather.

Across Japan, the average temperatures from January through December were 1.48 degrees Celsius higher than the 1991-2020 average, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

This was the most since the agency started releasing data in 1898 and higher than the previous year's record, which exceeded the average by 1.29 degrees Celsius.

Long term, "Japan's temperature has been rising in a pace of 1.40 Celsius per century, and high temperatures have been observed in particular since the 1990s," the JMA said.

Kaoru Takahashi, the JMA official in charge of weather information, told AFP that climate change was a "factor".

Westerlies -- prevailing west-to-east winds -- also travelled further north, bringing warmer air, he said. 

Japan's summer last year was already the joint hottest on record -- equalling the level seen in 2023 -- while autumn was the warmest since records began.

The famous snowcap of Mount Fuji was also absent for the longest recorded period in 2024, not appearing until early November, compared with the average of early October.

Scientists say climate change is intensifying the risk of heavy rain in Japan and elsewhere, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.

In September last year, floods and landslides killed 16 people in the remote Noto Peninsula in central Japan, already hit by a major earthquake on January 1.

And in November, heavy rains prompted authorities to urge hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate.

Other countries, including India, Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Germany and Brazil, also saw temperature records in 2024.

Emissions of greenhouse gases grew to new record highs, locking in more heat for the future, the World Meteorological Organization said last week.

Japan has the dirtiest energy mix in the G7, campaigners say, with fossil fuels accounting for nearly 70 percent of its power generation in 2023.

Japan aims to be carbon-neutral by 2050 and to cut emissions by 46 percent by 2030 from 2013 levels in the world's number four economy.

Under new plans announced in December, renewables will account for 40-50 percent of electricity by 2040, up from around 23 percent in 2023.

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