People around the world suffered an average of 41 extra days of dangerous heat this year because of human-caused climate change, according to a group of scientists who also said that climate change worsened much of the world's damaging weather throughout 2024.
The analysis from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central researchers comes at the end of a year that shattered climate record after climate record as heat across the globe made 2024 likely to be its hottest ever measured and a slew of other fatal weather events spared few.
Click to Gallery
FILE - Stephanie Touissaint, foreground, uses a fan to keep cool in the sweltering heat at Eiffel Tower Stadium during a beach volleyball match between Cuba and Brazil at the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 30, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
FILE - A Red Cross volunteer gives water to tourists at the foot of the Acropolis hill during a hot and windy day in Athens, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
FILE - A boy cools himself with an electric fan on a sweltering day at a park in Tongzhou, on the outskirts of Beijing, June 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
FILE - A man fills containers with water due to the shortage caused by high temperatures and drought in Veracruz, Mexico, on June 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez, File)
FILE - Men deliver sacks of ice cubes as demand remains high due to hot temperatures in Quezon city, Philippines on April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)
FILE - Tourists with an umbrella walk in front of the Parthenon at the ancient Acropolis in central Athens, June 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
FILE - Ricky Leath, an outreach specialist with the City of Miami, talks with Bei Zhao, right, as he works with the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust to distribute bottles of water and other supplies to the homeless population, helping them manage high temperatures, May 15, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
“The finding is devastating but utterly unsurprising: Climate change did play a role, and often a major role in most of the events we studied, making heat, droughts, tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall more likely and more intense across the world, destroying lives and livelihoods of millions and often uncounted numbers of people,” Friederike Otto, the lead of World Weather Attribution and an Imperial College climate scientist, said during a media briefing on the scientists' findings. “As long as the world keeps burning fossil fuels, this will only get worse.”
Millions of people endured stifling heat this year. Northern California and Death Valley baked. Sizzling daytime temperatures scorched Mexico and Central America. Heat endangered already vulnerable children in West Africa. Skyrocketing southern European temperatures forced Greece to close the Acropolis. In South and Southeast Asian countries, heat forced school closures. Earth experienced some of the hottest days ever measured and its hottest-yet summer, with a 13-month heat streak that just barely broke.
To do its heat analysis, the team of volunteer international scientists compared daily temperatures around the globe in 2024 to the temperatures that would have been expected in a world without climate change. The results are not yet peer-reviewed, but researchers use peer-reviewed methods.
Some areas saw 150 days or more of extreme heat due to climate change.
“The poorest, least developed countries on the planet are the places that are experiencing even higher numbers,” said Kristina Dahl, vice president of climate science at Climate Central.
What's worse, heat-related deaths are often underreported.
“People don’t have to die in heat waves. But if we can’t communicate convincingly, ‘but actually a lot of people are dying,’ it’s much harder to raise this awareness,” Otto said. “Heat waves are by far the deadliest extreme event, and they are the extreme events where climate change is a real game changer.”
This year was a warning that the planet is getting dangerously close to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming limit compared to the pre-industrial average, according to the scientists. Earth is expected to soon edge past that threshold, although it's not considered to have been breached until that warming is sustained over decades.
The researchers closely examined 29 extreme weather events this year that killed at least 3,700 people and displaced millions, and found that 26 of them had clear links to climate change.
The El Niño weather pattern, which naturally warms the Pacific Ocean and changes weather around the world, made some of this weather more likely earlier in the year. But the researchers said most of their studies found that climate change played a bigger role than that phenomenon in fueling 2024's events. Warm ocean waters and warmer air fueled more destructive storms, according to the researchers, while temperatures led to many record-breaking downpours.
Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Cape Cod who wasn’t involved in the research, said the science and findings were sound.
“Extreme weather will continue to become more frequent, intense, destructive, costly, and deadly, until we can lower the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere," she said.
Significantly more climate extremes could be expected without action, the United Nations Environment Programme said in the fall, as more planet-warming carbon dioxide has been sent into the air this year by burning fossil fuels than last year.
But the deaths and damages from extreme weather events aren't inevitable, said Julie Arrighi, director of programmes at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and part of the research.
“Countries can reduce those impacts by preparing for climate change and adapting for climate change, and while the challenges faced by individual countries or systems or places vary around the world, we do see that every country has a role to play," she said.
Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE - Stephanie Touissaint, foreground, uses a fan to keep cool in the sweltering heat at Eiffel Tower Stadium during a beach volleyball match between Cuba and Brazil at the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 30, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
FILE - A Red Cross volunteer gives water to tourists at the foot of the Acropolis hill during a hot and windy day in Athens, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
FILE - A boy cools himself with an electric fan on a sweltering day at a park in Tongzhou, on the outskirts of Beijing, June 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
FILE - A man fills containers with water due to the shortage caused by high temperatures and drought in Veracruz, Mexico, on June 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez, File)
FILE - Men deliver sacks of ice cubes as demand remains high due to hot temperatures in Quezon city, Philippines on April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)
FILE - Tourists with an umbrella walk in front of the Parthenon at the ancient Acropolis in central Athens, June 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
FILE - Ricky Leath, an outreach specialist with the City of Miami, talks with Bei Zhao, right, as he works with the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust to distribute bottles of water and other supplies to the homeless population, helping them manage high temperatures, May 15, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
BEND, Ore. (AP) — Dozens of homeless people who have been living in a national forest in central Oregon for years were being evicted Thursday by the U.S. Forest Service, as it closed the area for a wildfire prevention project that will involve removing smaller trees, clearing debris and setting controlled burns over thousands of acres.
The project has been on the books for years, and the decision to remove the encampment in the Deschutes National Forest comes two months after the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal agencies to increase timber production and forest management projects aimed at reducing wildfire risk.
Deschutes National Forest spokesperson Kaitlyn Webb said in an email that the closure order was “directly tied to the forest restoration work.” Homeless advocates, meanwhile, seized on the timing on Thursday as U.S. Forest Service officers blocked the access road.
“The fact that they are doing this with such vigor shortly after they announced that the forests would be opened up for logging I don’t think is a coincidence," said Jesse Rabinowitz, spokesperson for the National Homelessness Law Center.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and the service’s Pacific Northwest Region did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
“The closure does not target any specific user group and will restrict all access, including day use and overnight camping, while crews operate heavy machinery, conduct prescribed burns, and clean up hazardous materials,” Webb said. “It’s not safe for the public to be in the area while heavy machinery is operating, trees are being felled, mowing operations are active, and prescribed burning is occurring.”
Campers who had set up trailers, recreational vehicles and tents amidst the ponderosa pines in the forest scrambled in the darkness Wednesday night to pack up and get their engines working again. Authorities closed the two-lane road in the early hours of Thursday morning, and it wasn’t immediately clear how many people were left in the forest by the afternoon, though some were unable to leave.
The U.S. Forest Service has been working for years on plans to close part of the Deschutes National Forest near Bend for forest restoration and wildfire mitigation. But the number of people living in that part of the forest has grown, with many losing homes during the coronavirus pandemic due to job losses and high housing costs, Rabinowitz said.
President Donald Trump’s administration has acted to roll back environmental safeguards around future logging projects on more than half of U.S. national forests, under an emergency designation that cites dangers from wildfires.
Whether the administration's move will boost lumber supplies as Trump envisioned in an executive order he signed in March remains to be seen. Former President Joe Biden’s administration also sought more logging in public forests to combat fires, which have become more intense amid drier and hotter conditions linked to climate change, yet U.S. Forest Service timber sales stayed relatively flat under his tenure.
The Cabin Butte Vegetation Management Project, a wildfire mitigation treatment on some 30,000 acres (12,000 hectares), is prompting the closures in the Deschutes National Forest.
The goal of the work is to reduce wildfire risk and restore damaged habitats where development encroaches on natural areas near Bend, Deschutes National Forest officials said in a statement. Recreation sites and trails in that area will be closed through April next year.
Multiple U.S. Forest Service officials and vehicles were stationed at the Deschutes National Forest road closure on Thursday. A sign on the metal gate blocking the road said the temporary emergency closure will last at least one year.
Violators could face up to six months in jail, fines up to $5,000, or both.
On Wednesday night, Mandy Bryant, who said she had lived in the encampment for about three years, was cleaning up her site and trying to get a trailer to start so she could move it.
“You could feel the heaviness in the air and just the stress and depression that people are feeling,” she told The Associated Press. “We’re up there on the list of groups of people that society doesn’t really care for.”
Four people living in the encampment including Bryant, along with two homeless advocates, filed for a restraining order to stop the closure. The claim argued it would cause irreparable harm to more than 100 people who were living there, many of whom have disabilities.
The government responded in court filings that U.S. Forest Service staff in January began notifying homeless people living in the area of the upcoming closure. Original plans for the project were published in 2019 and were authorized by the U.S. Forest Service in 2023, the court filings said.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane denied the restraining order on Tuesday and issued a written opinion on Thursday.
“The public’s significant interest in restoring natural habitats, preventing catastrophic wildfires, and preserving the overall health of Deschutes National Forest is not outweighed by the interest of 150 or so individuals in residing on this particular plot of land," he wrote in his ruling.
Webb, the Deschutes National Forest spokesperson, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the government’s goal is “voluntary compliance,” but Forest Service officers and staff will patrol and “enforce the closure and ensure public safety.”
__
Rush reported from Portland, Oregon.
Greg Bishop, bottom center, who lived in a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, walks along a dirt road to check on camp sites for residents who have not lefts the encampment on Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A U.S. Forest Service vehicle drives down a dirt road past newly placed rock barrier towards a trailer at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Chris Daggett, who lived in a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, pushes a scooter belonging to another resident as he helps to remove items for fellow campers on Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A tow truck driver helps removing a trailer for a person staying at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Debris lies scattered around a trailer at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Debris lies scattered around a trailer at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A trucking and logging vehicle, at left, drives past trailers lining China Hat Road as leaves an area that was closed off in Deschutes National Forest, Thursday, May 1, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Jessica Gamble, who started the nonprofit Home More Network in 2022, right, looks on after reading text messages she received when a road to a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest was closed on Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A person talks to a U.S. Forest Service official about getting through a road barrier to collect their belongings at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Nick Campbell vapes at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A flashlight from Mandy Bryant's shines on chairs propped up by trees at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A tiara rests on a seat as a woman writes in a journal at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A string of lights hangs on a tree above a memorial at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Greg Bishop works to get an RV to start at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Mike Shelton works to attach a hitch to a vehicle as he loads up his belongings at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Nick Campbell looks up while talking to a volunteer at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Greg Bishop works to get an RV to start at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Trailers and RVs are seen at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A woman looks up from writing in a notebook with the words "to be a princess" seen near the top of the page and a tiara next to her inside a trailer as her father works to get it to start, at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Chris Daggett works to get an RV to start so that it can be moved at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Mandy Bryant holds her dog as she talks with a neighbor at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Mike Shelton works to attach a hitch to a vehicle as he loads up his belongings at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Mandy Bryant walks to help Mike Shelton with his trailer as they load up their belongings at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A person walks to a tent at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
