2024 saw earth’s highest recorded temperatures supercharge extreme weather events, providing more stark reminders that the once abstract risk of ‘climate catastrophe’ is now a reality, implicating the livelihoods of millions of people around the globe.

New data reveals that global temperature averages exceeded the critical 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels for the first time in recorded history last year. While the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target is assessed over a multi decade average, meaning a single year’s breach doesn’t signify a failure to meet the goal, this milestone serves as an unambiguous warning. It underscores the accelerating intensity of the climate emergency and the urgent need for transformative action. These record-breaking temperatures brought devastating consequences: relentless heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods wreaked havoc worldwide, taking thousands of lives, displacing millions, and leaving countless communities grappling with unprecedented challenges.

Less than two weeks into 2025, destructive wildfires in Los Angeles, worsened by near-hurricane force winds and tinder dry vegetation, have already forced some 150,000 residents to evacuate and claimed at least 24 lives. The fires are unprecedented, not just for their timing in the middle of winter, but for their ferocity, signalling the emergence of an era defined by complex climate disasters. Conditions for such a disaster—drought, high winds, and dry vegetation—are products of a warming world. Scientists have warned that these compound events i.e. multiple extreme weather phenomena occurring simultaneously, are becoming more frequent, overwhelming communities’ ability to respond.

A sign of the troubling times

From the wildfires in Spain, Brazil, and Canada to catastrophic flooding in West and Central Africa, no corner of the world has been spared from climate related disasters. The LA fires are emblematic of a broader global crisis. Across the world, 2024 brought deadly storms in Southeast Asia, unrelenting heat in the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India in April, fatal heatwaves affecting pilgrims in Saudi Arabia, and Greece experienced its earliest heatwave on record. In 2024 alone, water related disasters claimed over 8,700 lives, displaced 40 million people, and caused economic damage exceeding $550 billion. Countries like Nepal, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and China faced deadly flooding, while droughts in southern Africa halved crop production, putting 30 million people at risk of hunger.

A call to action

The escalating frequency and severity of these disasters demands immediate global action. The 2022 IPCC report underscored that, while all regions are affected by climate change, the vulnerability of ecosystems and people vary considerably based on factors including inequity, marginalisation, colonialism and governance. Addressing this crisis requires not only reducing emissions but also ensuring equity, inclusivity, and resilience in climate policies. Between 3.3 and 3.6 billion people – almost half the global population – live in areas where they are “highly vulnerable” to climate change. Whilst climate mitigation must be the end goal, climate adaptation and resilience, bolstered by sufficient loss and damage funding, must be prioritised too. As we adapt to this new climate reality, countries and communities must be equipped and supported to respond to current and future climate change impacts.

Sectors like fashion, responsible for up to 4% of global emissions, have a unique opportunity to lead. By prioritising emissions reduction, supporting equitable policies, and advocating for legislative action, industries can influence the trajectory of climate change.

As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in his 2025 New Year’s address: “We are facing a climate breakdown in real time. We must get off this road to ruin, and we have no time to lose.”

Find out more about how you can support those affected by the Los Angeles fires here and here.