The news was announced by the WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas, who said that even though the planet is experiencing a La Nina, which generally has a cooling effect, this year has already had some disastrous environmental disasters. The average global temperature in 2020 is set to be about 1.2 °C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level. There is at least a one in five chance of it temporarily exceeding 1.5 °C by 2024,” said Taalas. “Record warm years have usually coincided with a strong El Niño event, as was the case in 2016. We are now experiencing a La Niña, which has a cooling effect on global temperatures, but has not been sufficient to put a brake on this year’s heat. Despite the current La Niña conditions, this year has already shown near record heat comparable to the previous record of 2016. “2020 has, unfortunately, been yet another extraordinary year for our climate. We saw new extreme temperatures on land, sea and especially in the Arctic. Wildfires consumed vast areas in Australia, Siberia, the US West Coast and South America, sending plumes of smoke circumnavigating the globe. We saw a record number of hurricanes in the Atlantic, including unprecedented back-to-back category 4 hurricanes in Central America in November. Flooding in parts of Africa and South East Asia led to massive population displacement and undermined food security for millions,” he said. Meanwhile research published in October By influential climate change blog, Carbon Brief, has said that record concentrations of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere might actually make 2020 the hottest year since records began in the mid-1800s.