This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The climate crisis caused an additional six weeks of dangerously hot days in 2024 for the average person, supercharging the fatal impact of heat waves around the world.

The effects of human-caused global heating were far worse for some people, an analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central has shown. Those in the Caribbean and Pacific island states were the hardest hit. Many endured about 150 more days of dangerous heat than they would have done without global heating, almost half the year.

Nearly half the world’s countries endured at least two months of high-risk temperatures. Even in the least affected places, such as the UK, US, and Australia, the carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning has led to an extra three weeks of elevated temperatures.

Worsened heatwaves are the deadliest consequence of the climate emergency. An end to coal, oil, and gas burning was vital to stopping the effects from getting even worse, the scientists said, with 2024 forecast to be the hottest year on record with record-high carbon emissions.

The researchers called for deaths from heatwaves to be reported in real time, with current data being a “very gross underestimate” because of the lack of monitoring. It is possible that uncounted millions of people have died as a result of human-caused global heating in recent decades.

“In most countries there is no reporting on heatwaves at all, which means the numbers we have are always a very gross underestimate.”

“The impacts of fossil fuel warming have never been clearer or more devastating than in 2024 and caused unrelenting suffering,” said Dr Friederike Otto, of Imperial College London and the co-lead of WWA. “The floods in Spain, hurricanes in the US, drought in the Amazon, and floods across Africa are just a few examples. We know exactly what we need to do to stop things from getting worse: stop burning fossil fuels.”

Joseph Giguere, a research technician at Climate Central, said, “Almost everywhere on Earth, daily temperatures hot enough to threaten human health have become more common because of climate change.”

The Guardian revealed in November that the climate crisis had caused dozens of previously impossible heatwaves, as well as making hundreds of other extreme weather events more severe or more likely to happen.

The new analysis identified local “dangerous heat days” by calculating the threshold temperature for the hottest 10 percent of days from 1991-2020. These days are associated with increased health risks.

The researchers then compared the number of days exceeding this threshold in 2024 to those in a scenario without global heating to calculate how many extra hot days were caused by the climate crisis.

They found the average person was exposed to a further 41 days of dangerous heat, highlighting how the climate crisis was exposing millions more people to dangerous temperatures for longer periods of the year.

Indonesia, home to 280 million people, experienced 122 days of additional dangerous heat, as did Singapore and many Central American states.

In the Middle East, people in Saudi Arabia endured 70 additional hot days, in a year when at least 1,300 hajj pilgrims died during extreme heat.

Brazil and Bangladesh endured about 50 extra hot days, while Spain, Norway, and the Balkan countries had an additional month of high temperatures.

Five billion people, almost two-thirds of the global population, experienced raised temperatures made at least twice as likely by global heating on 21 July, one of the hottest days of the year.

Hurricanes were also supercharged by the climate crisis in 2024. Kristina Dahl, the vice president for science at Climate Central, said: “Our analyses have shown that every Atlantic hurricane this year was made stronger by climate change, and that hurricanes Beryl and Milton, which were both category five storms, would not have reached that level were it not for climate change.”

Recent WWA analysis showed that an extraordinary sequence of six typhoons in the Philippines in 30 days, which affected 13 million people, was made more likely and more severe by global heating.

Julie Arrighi, the programs director at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said, “Another devastating year of extreme weather has shown that we are not well prepared for life at [the current level] of warming. In 2025, it’s crucial that every country accelerates efforts to adapt to climate change and that funds are provided by rich nations to help developing countries become more resilient.”

Measures should include better early warning systems, which saved lives, and the reporting of heat deaths, the researchers said.

“In most countries, there is no reporting on heatwaves at all, which means the numbers we have are always a very gross underestimate,” Otto said. “If we can’t communicate convincingly that actually lots of people are dying, it’s much harder to raise awareness that heatwaves are by far the deadliest extreme events, and they are the extreme events where climate change is a real game changer.”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

From a toadstool with teeth to a vine smelling of marzipan and a flower that has cheated its way out of having to photosynthesize, a weird and wonderful host of new plant and fungus species have been discovered in 2024.

Other plants given scientific names for the first time include beautiful new orchids, a ghostly palm, and a hairy plant that appears to have stolen a gene from an unrelated family. The species are among the 172 new plants and fungi named by scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and their partners.

The species come from every corner of the globe, from woods near Tunbridge Wells in Kent in England, to African sandstone cliffs in Guinea and the forests of Indonesia.

However, botanists are in a race against time to discover many plants and fungi before the continuing destruction of the natural world drives them to extinction. The loss of species does not only mean that their unique biology is gone forever, but also their potential for use as medicine, food, and even as plastic recyclers. Some of the new species in 2024 already face extinction because of cement manufacturing, cinnamon farming, and timber plantations.

There are 400,000 named plant species but scientists estimate there are another 100,000 yet to be identified. Every year, scientists name about 2,500 new species of plant and the same number of fungi.

“The sheer privilege of describing a species as new to science is a thrill that not many will ever get to experience.”

“The sheer privilege of describing a species as new to science is a thrill that not many will ever get to experience,” said Dr Martin Cheek, in RBG Kew’s Africa team. “Sadly, the devastating reality is that more often than not, new species are being found on the brink of extinction and it’s a race against time to find and describe them all.”

About 40 percent of named plant species are threatened with extinction, as habitats are razed for farmland and other human development, and as many as 75 percent of the world’s undescribed plant species are thought to be threatened with oblivion.

Toadstools most often have gills or pores under the caps to disperse their spores but those from the genus Phellodon have rows of teeth-like protuberances. This year DNA analysis revealed three new species in the UK, from woodland near Tunbridge Wells and Windsor in England, and Abernethy in Scotland. These fungi are harmed by nitrate pollution from farming and are disappearing across Europe.

Other new fungi include three species of toadstool from the genus Russula – which often give off a fishy whiff—from northern Sweden and Norway, the high Rockies in the US, and British Columbia in Canada.

Dr Anna Bazzicalupo, a fungi expert at RBG Kew, said: “Identifying new species of fungi is a colossal but increasingly important task as we estimate more than 2m species are waiting to be described. An overwhelming number of them are likely threatened with extinction, meaning they may disappear before they are even recognized.”

Three more new lianas were found in southern China. These flower only at night and are pollinated by moths. One, Cheniella longistaminea, can grow up to 80 meters tall but all are threatened by plantations of timber and cinnamon, with the latter being a big export to the US. Another new liana in Vietnam, Chlorohiptage vietnamensis, grows in a limestone landscape that is being cleared for cement quarries. Scientists do not know what kind of insect pollinates its strange green flowers.

Botanists also revealed a new family of cheats in 2024, called Afrothismiaceae. The rare plants, found mostly in forests in Cameroon, do not use sunlight to photosynthesize sugars and have lost their green color. Plants usually provide these sugars to mycorrhizal fungi in their roots in exchange for minerals. But the Afrothismiaceae species take all they need from their fungal partners, giving nothing in return, and only appear above ground to fruit and flower.

Another rule-breaker is a new herb from Guinea in West Africa, named Virectaria stellata, which grows on the remote sandstone cliffs of the Fouta Djallon. It has star-shaped clusters of hair, which have never been seen in this large family before. But these hairy stars do occur in plants from an unrelated genus called Barleria. The botanists think the genes that produce the stellate hairs may have jumped from one family to the other via sap-drinking insects.

Among the most spectacular new species, are a bonanza of orchids from Indonesia, which still hosts many unknown species across its 17,000 islands. A climbing palm in western Borneo was also named in 2024, Plectocomiopsis hantu. Hantu is the local word for ghost, used because the plant has grey stems and white undersides to its leaves and it is known from only three rainforest locations. Local communities, however, have long used it to make baskets and for its tasty and tender roots.

Cheek said: “Biodiversity loss is a crisis that affects us all. Every unknown species we lose could have been a potential new food or new medicine that we never even knew existed. We urgently need more funding, training, and public awareness of plant and fungal taxonomy.”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Private jet flights have soared in recent years, with the resulting climate-heating emissions rising by 50 percent, the most comprehensive global analysis to date has revealed.

The assessment tracked more than 25,000 private jets and almost 19 million flights between 2019 and 2023. It found almost half the jets traveled less than 500 kilometers (about 310 miles) and 900,000 were used “like taxis” for trips of less than 31 miles. Many flights were for holidays, arriving in sunny locations in the summertime. The FIFA World Cup in Qatar in 2022 attracted more than 1,800 private flights.

Private flights, used by just 0.003 percent of the world’s population, are the most polluting form of transport. The researchers found that passengers in larger private jets caused more CO₂ emissions in an hour than the average person did in a year.

The US dominated private jet travel, representing 69 percent of flights, and Canada, the UK, and Australia were all in the top 10. A private jet takes off every six minutes in the UK. The total emissions from private jet flights in 2023 were more than 15 million metric tons, more than the 60 million people of Tanzania emitted.

The jets “are an utterly unjustifiable and gratuitous waste of our scarce remaining emissions budget…and their emissions are soaring.”

Industry expectations are that another 8,500 business jets will enter service by 2033, far outstripping efficiency gains and indicating that private flight emissions will rise even further. The researchers said their work highlighted the vast global inequality in emissions between wealthier and poorer people, and tackling the emissions of the wealthy minority was critical to ending global heating.

Stefan Gössling, the professor at Linnaeus University in Sweden who led the research, said: “The wealthy are a very small share of the population but are increasing their emissions very quickly and by very large levels of magnitude.” He added: “The growth in global emissions that we are experiencing at this point in time is coming from the top.”

The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, took data from the ADS-B Exchange platform, which records the signals sent once a minute by transponders on every plane, recording its position and altitude. This huge dataset—1.8 terabytes—was then filtered for the 72 plane models marketed by their manufacturers as “business jets.” The emissions figures are most likely an underestimate, as smaller planes and emissions from taxiing on the ground were not included.

The analysis found the number of private jets increased by 28 percent and the distance flown jumped by 53 percent between 2019 and 2023. Fewer than a third of the flights were longer than 620 miles and almost 900,000 flights were less than 31 miles.

“We know some people use them as taxis, really,” Gössling said. “If it’s just [31 miles], you could definitely do that by car.” Outside the US and Europe, Brazil, the Middle East, and the Caribbean are private jet hotspots.

Much of the use is for leisure, the researchers found. For example, private jet use to Ibiza in Spain and Nice in France peaked in the summer and was concentrated around weekends. In the US, Taylor Swift, Drake, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Steven Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey are among those who have been criticized for heavy private jet use.

The researchers also looked at some business events in 2023, with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, resulting in 660 private jet flights and the COP28 climate summit in Dubai having 291 flights.

Gössling said the driving factors behind the large recent increase in private jet use have not been analyzed but might include an increasing reluctance to share cabins on commercial flights that began during the Covid pandemic. Industry documents describe private jet users as “ultra-high net worth,” comprising about 250,000 individuals with an average wealth of $123 million. US private jet users are increasingly using “privacy ICAO addresses,” which mask the identity of the plane and could make tracking them much harder in the future.

According to Gössling, passengers should pay for the climate damage resulting from each ton of CO₂ emitted, estimated at about $216: “Very basically, it would seem fair that people paid for the damage they are causing by their behavior.”

A second step would be to increase the landing fees for private aircraft, which are currently very low, he added. A landing fee of $5,400 could be an effective deterrent, roughly doubling the cost of common private flights.

Alethea Warrington, head of aviation at the climate charity Possible, said: “Private jets, used by a tiny group of ultra-wealthy people, are an utterly unjustifiable and gratuitous waste of our scarce remaining emissions budget to avoid climate breakdown, and their emissions are soaring, even as the impacts of the climate crisis escalate.”

“It’s time for governments to act,” she said. “We need…a supertax, rapidly arriving at an outright ban on private jets.”

The US Private Aviation Association did not respond to a request for comment.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Private jet flights have soared in recent years, with the resulting climate-heating emissions rising by 50 percent, the most comprehensive global analysis to date has revealed.

The assessment tracked more than 25,000 private jets and almost 19 million flights between 2019 and 2023. It found almost half the jets traveled less than 500 kilometers (about 310 miles) and 900,000 were used “like taxis” for trips of less than 31 miles. Many flights were for holidays, arriving in sunny locations in the summertime. The FIFA World Cup in Qatar in 2022 attracted more than 1,800 private flights.

Private flights, used by just 0.003 percent of the world’s population, are the most polluting form of transport. The researchers found that passengers in larger private jets caused more CO₂ emissions in an hour than the average person did in a year.

The US dominated private jet travel, representing 69 percent of flights, and Canada, the UK, and Australia were all in the top 10. A private jet takes off every six minutes in the UK. The total emissions from private jet flights in 2023 were more than 15 million metric tons, more than the 60 million people of Tanzania emitted.

The jets “are an utterly unjustifiable and gratuitous waste of our scarce remaining emissions budget…and their emissions are soaring.”

Industry expectations are that another 8,500 business jets will enter service by 2033, far outstripping efficiency gains and indicating that private flight emissions will rise even further. The researchers said their work highlighted the vast global inequality in emissions between wealthier and poorer people, and tackling the emissions of the wealthy minority was critical to ending global heating.

Stefan Gössling, the professor at Linnaeus University in Sweden who led the research, said: “The wealthy are a very small share of the population but are increasing their emissions very quickly and by very large levels of magnitude.” He added: “The growth in global emissions that we are experiencing at this point in time is coming from the top.”

The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, took data from the ADS-B Exchange platform, which records the signals sent once a minute by transponders on every plane, recording its position and altitude. This huge dataset—1.8 terabytes—was then filtered for the 72 plane models marketed by their manufacturers as “business jets.” The emissions figures are most likely an underestimate, as smaller planes and emissions from taxiing on the ground were not included.

The analysis found the number of private jets increased by 28 percent and the distance flown jumped by 53 percent between 2019 and 2023. Fewer than a third of the flights were longer than 620 miles and almost 900,000 flights were less than 31 miles.

“We know some people use them as taxis, really,” Gössling said. “If it’s just [31 miles], you could definitely do that by car.” Outside the US and Europe, Brazil, the Middle East, and the Caribbean are private jet hotspots.

Much of the use is for leisure, the researchers found. For example, private jet use to Ibiza in Spain and Nice in France peaked in the summer and was concentrated around weekends. In the US, Taylor Swift, Drake, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Steven Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey are among those who have been criticized for heavy private jet use.

The researchers also looked at some business events in 2023, with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, resulting in 660 private jet flights and the COP28 climate summit in Dubai having 291 flights.

Gössling said the driving factors behind the large recent increase in private jet use have not been analyzed but might include an increasing reluctance to share cabins on commercial flights that began during the Covid pandemic. Industry documents describe private jet users as “ultra-high net worth,” comprising about 250,000 individuals with an average wealth of $123 million. US private jet users are increasingly using “privacy ICAO addresses,” which mask the identity of the plane and could make tracking them much harder in the future.

According to Gössling, passengers should pay for the climate damage resulting from each ton of CO₂ emitted, estimated at about $216: “Very basically, it would seem fair that people paid for the damage they are causing by their behavior.”

A second step would be to increase the landing fees for private aircraft, which are currently very low, he added. A landing fee of $5,400 could be an effective deterrent, roughly doubling the cost of common private flights.

Alethea Warrington, head of aviation at the climate charity Possible, said: “Private jets, used by a tiny group of ultra-wealthy people, are an utterly unjustifiable and gratuitous waste of our scarce remaining emissions budget to avoid climate breakdown, and their emissions are soaring, even as the impacts of the climate crisis escalate.”

“It’s time for governments to act,” she said. “We need…a supertax, rapidly arriving at an outright ban on private jets.”

The US Private Aviation Association did not respond to a request for comment.