When the first timid snowflakes fell atop Japan's iconic Mount Fuji on Wednesday, locals and observers across the world breathed a sigh of relief. Its peak had been bare for a month longer than expected, the longest since records began 130 years ago, as the country shook off one of its hottest ever summers.

This year, for the second year in a row, Earth will be the hottest it has ever been, according to the European climate agency Copernicus. The globe reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared to pre-industrial levels this year - the threshold set by the Paris Agreement to avoid the very worst impacts of climate change.

The scientists and researchers at Copernicus concluded that despite other factors which contribute to exceptionally warm years - including El Nino, the temporary warming of parts of the Pacific which tends to have a ripple effect on weather worldwide - human-caused climate change is the main source of the spike in global temperatures.

The news comes as Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump is re-elected for another four-year term in the US. Trump has called climate change a "hoax" and a "scam", promised to boost oil production above current record levels, and is expected to withdraw the US once again from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

A study by the respected journal Carbon Brief found that the drilling and oil and gas burning promised by Trump would add four billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere by 2030.¹

According to scientists, to avoid the most devastating impacts of warming, from famine and drought to displacement and deaths from extreme heat, the world's biggest economies must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 67% from 2005 levels by 2035. This is a target the US is already trailing under the Biden administration, which has made climate intervention one of its headline policies.²

In a few days, delegations from countries across the world will travel to Baku, Azerbaijan, for the United Nations climate summit COP29, which takes place every year. This marks the second year in a row that COP will take place in a petrostate - a country which has an economy highly dependent on extracting and exporting oil or natural gas.

The decision to let Azerbaijan host COP29 has been controversial: fossil fuel accounts for two-thirds of the country's income and 90% of its exports. It plans to hike its output of natural gas by a third in the next decade. Its authoritarian government has a poor record on human rights, with repressionThe act of subsiding something by force. Repressive is usually used negatively, often to describe the activities of authoritarian states. and censorship of critics and journalists - including environmental activists - a common occurrence.

A combined £21.6bn was spent across the world to adapt to climate change in 2022. But the United Nations Environment Programme estimates that expenditure needs to be far higher. The climate talks kicking off next week in Baku will be focused on climate finance.

Extreme weather has been a hallmark featureA distinguishing characteristic of someone or something. of this year. From Hurricane Milton in Florida, which caused £65bn of destruction, to recent flash flooding in Spain, which killed 200 people, the devastating effects of the climate crisis are making themselves felt across the globe.

Is this the real news?

Yes: It seems we have surpassed the target set to avoid the most dystopianRelating to an imagined society where there is great suffering or injustice.  effects of climate change, and the biggest economy in the world has just elected a climate denier who intends to exceed our record levels of oil production. This will be the defining moment of catastrophe in history.

No: Even though the 1.5C limit has been broken for the first time, we have not yet broken the Paris goal, as this refers to an average over 20 years. It is not over yet, and we will still have plenty of opportunities to make things right, as long as the rest of the world steps up in the absence of US action.

Or... Although this is a big story, there are so many big stories and threats that it hardly holds up. What about AI, which could drive us to extinction within a decade? What about pandemics? What about nuclear war, which could be started by Russia at any moment?