PARIS: Last month was the hottest January on record, Europe’s climate monitor said Thursday, despite expectations that cooler La Nina conditions might quell a streak of record-breaking global temperatures.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said January was 1.75C hotter than pre-industrial times, extending a persistent run of history-making highs over 2023 and 2024, as human-caused greenhouse gas emissions crank up the global thermostat.
Climate scientists had expected this exceptional spell to subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in January 2024 and conditions gradually shifted to an opposing, cooling La Nina phase.
But the heat has lingered at record or near record levels ever since, sparking debate among scientists about what other factors could be driving heating to the top end of expectations.
“This is what makes it a bit of a surprise... you’re not seeing this cooling effect, or temporary brake at least, on the global temperature that we were expecting to see,” Julien Nicolas, a climate scientist from Copernicus, told AFP.
La Nina is expected to be weak and Copernicus said prevailing temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean suggested “a slowing or stalling of the move toward” the cooling phenomenon.
Nicolas said it could disappear completely by March.

Clear sign the limit was being tested

Last month, Copernicus said that global temperatures averaged across 2023 and 2024 had exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time.
This did not represent a permanent breach of the long-term 1.5C warming target under the Paris climate accord — but a clear sign that the limit was being tested.
Scientists warn that every fraction of a degree of warming above 1.5C increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events like heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts.
Copernicus said Arctic sea ice in January hit a monthly record low, virtually tied with 2018. Analysis from the US this week put it at the second-lowest in that dataset.
Overall, 2025, is not expected to follow 2023 and 2024 into the history books: scientists predict it will rank the third hottest year yet.
Copernicus said it would be closely monitoring ocean temperatures throughout 2025 for hints about how the climate might behave.
Oceans are a vital climate regulator and carbon sink, and cooler waters can absorb greater amounts of heat from the atmosphere, helping to lower air temperatures.
They also store 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by humanity’s release of greenhouse gases.
“This heat is bound to resurface periodically,” said Nicolas.
“I think that’s also one of the questions — is this what has been happening over the past couple of years?“
Sea surface temperatures have been exceptionally warm over 2023 and 2024, and Copernicus said readings in January were the second highest on record.
“That is the thing that is a little puzzling — why they remain so warm,” Nicolas said.

The culprit: burning fossil fuels
Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming, and that natural climate variability can also influence temperatures one year to the next.
But natural warming cycles like El Nino could not alone explain what had taken place in the atmosphere and seas, and answers were being sought elsewhere.
One theory is that a global shift to cleaner shipping fuels in 2020 accelerated warming by reducing sulfur emissions that make clouds more mirror-like and reflective of sunlight.
In December, another peer-reviewed paper looked at whether a reduction in low-lying clouds had let more heat reach Earth’s surface.
“It’s really still a matter of debate,” said Nicolas.
The EU monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.
Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data — such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons — allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.
Scientists say the period being lived through right now is likely the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.
 

WASHINGTON: The federal office that enforces civil rights at schools across the US has been ordered to target complaints of antisemitism above all else as it molds to President Donald Trump’s agenda, raising fears that other rights violations will go unpunished.
Trump’s new leader of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights told staff this week they will be expected to aggressively pursue complaints involving antisemitism and hew closely to Trump’s wishes, according to sources who were on the call with Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights.
Already there are signs of a hard turn on civil rights enforcement, including new actions focused squarely on anti-Jewish bias and transgender issues.
Responding to a White House order last week, the office launched new antisemitism investigations at five universities including Columbia and Northwestern. Days earlier, it opened an inquiry into Denver public schools over an all-gender bathroom that replaced a girls’ bathroom while leaving another one exclusive to boys.
The office’s fleet of lawyers have mostly been sidelined while the new administration shifts priorities. Daily work has been frozen, which is typical when a new president takes office, but sources say there’s a new blackout on communication with schools, colleges or those submitting complaints. Questions about how to enforce Title IX go unanswered, leaving schools in the dark as they navigate a new memo from the agency last week.
The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
In the staff call, Trainor said the office must be more aggressive and faster than it was under former President Joe Biden. He accused the previous administration of neglecting its duty to fight antisemitism, leaving more than 100 cases open. Trump has called for a review of all antisemitism cases opened since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, including those resolved under Biden.
With a rigid focus on antisemitism and gender identity, there’s fear the office won’t give adequate attention to racial discrimination, mistreatment based on disability, or Islamophobia. The office is required to process all complaints it fields, but politics can play a role in setting priorities and choosing which cases to pursue.
Raymond Pierce, who led the office under Democratic President Bill Clinton, said focusing on antisemitism alone doesn’t fulfill the mission of the office — to enforce civil rights laws.
“Antisemitism is an issue,” he said. “But the Civil Rights Act is broader than just religion.”
In a statement, Trainor promised his office “will vigorously investigate all alleged violations of civil rights laws within its purview.”
Trainor had also warned staff of a coming “restructuring” and acknowledged that Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is examining the Education Department. It raised worries about staffing cuts in a civil rights office that has seen dwindling numbers even as it received a record 22,687 complaints last year.
Additionally, there’s concern Trump in his quest to shut down the Education Department will slash the office’s budget and move it to the Justice Department, as suggested in the Project 2025 blueprint created by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The impact of Trump’s changes are most likely to be felt by Black students and those who are disabled, according to lawyers and advocates. For decades, the Office for Civil Rights has worked to force equal access for marginalized students, said Derek W. Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina.
If the office finds merit in a complaint, it has the power to withhold federal funding until schools or states comply.
“Are there local and state officials who want to do right by kids? Of course, there are,” Black said. “But are there districts that don’t think it’s a big deal or don’t want to do right by poor kids? Unfortunately, there are.”
Historically, most complaints to the department have involved disability discrimination, but last year accusations of sex discrimination surged to account for more than half of all complaints, according to an annual report. Disability discrimination accounted for 37 percent, while discrimination over race or national origin accounted for 19 percent.
In addition to its duty to investigate complaints, the office creates federal rules to interpret federal law for schools and colleges. That role has been at the center of a political tug-of-war over Title IX, with recent administrations repeatedly rewriting the rules governing investigations of campus sexual misconduct.
The Biden administration issued new rules last year expanding Title IX to protect transgender and LGBTQ+ students, and boosting victims’ rights. A federal judge overturned the rules in January, reverting to a previous set of rules from Trump’s first term.
In a memo to schools and colleges last week, the Office for Civil Rights emphasized that the earlier Trump rules would be enforced, but it created confusion about how to handle cases that were opened when Biden’s rules were in effect. With no communication from the department, there has been little clarity for schools.
There are also questions about how antisemitism investigations will change. Trump has used heated rhetoric to push for more aggressive action against colleges found to have tolerated antisemitism, and Trainor blasted the Biden administration for signing “toothless” agreements to resolve cases. No new guidance has been issued to lawyers who investigate cases.
As the office awaits orders to resume its work, it faces a growing backlog of complaints.
Before Trump took office, there were more than 140 open investigations involving shared ancestry, many of them dealing with antisemitism or Islamophobia. The Biden administration opened more than 100 investigations after Oct. 7, 2023. A flurry of schools reached deals to settle the cases before Trump took office amid fears that he would issue heavier sanctions.