First time in what timeframe?
The significance of this is the rate at which the planet is warming, which is unprecedented as according to historical data. The rate is what concerns environmental scientists as it means that ecosystems etc. do not have the same time to adapt as compared to pre-historical periods of warming.
> It’s official: Earth’s average temperature climbed to more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in 2024
> so what ? it burned once 40 years ago already
The issue here is that modern society was built with certain expectations of certain temperature ranges, and by burning petrochemicals and adding carbon to the atmosphere we have increased the hot house effect of CO2 in the atmosphere beyond the ability of the planet to absorb it, resulting in a net average increase in temperature on a global scale.
A layman's understanding of this:
- burning fossil fuels adds CO2 and CO to the atmosphere
- increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere increases the "greenhouse effect" --- this is easily proven with a science experiment 4th graders can do
- the added solar gain increases the temperature of the planet beyond what can be radiated out into space for that portion of the planet rotated out of the sunlight
- no one has been able to demonstrate that this additional solar energy is doing anything other than warming the planet --- if it isn't doing so, please explain in plain, simple words where this added energy is going and what it is doing
And even if so this rapid rate of increase is still not a good thing. It will require expensive adaptations and lead to extinctions.
This is obvious if you think about it, all that carbon in the ground had to be in the air before photosynthetic life.
And before any life, the Earth was a molten ball of liquid rock.