© Agência Brasil/Gilvan Rocha The city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. 28 March 2025 Climate and Environment Extreme weather and climate impacts had a damaging toll on Latin America and the Caribbean last year, resulting in dying glaciers, record-breaking hurricanes, debilitating drought and deadly floods, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a new report on Friday. The study also highlights positive developments amid the bleak news, such as the growing role of renewable energy in the region and the power of early warning systems to save lives. “In 2024, weather and climate impacts cascaded from the Andes to the Amazon, from crowded cities to coastal communities, causing major economic and environmental disruptions ,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “Drought and extreme heat fuelled devastating wildfires. Exceptional rainfall triggered unprecedented flooding, and we saw the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record,” she added. Feeling the heat The State of the Climate for Latin America and the Caribbean report reveals that 2024 was the warmest or second warmest year on record, depending on the dataset used. Rising temperatures led to the disappearance of the Humboldt Glacier, the last one standing in Venezuela , which became the second country in the world after Slovenia to lose all its glaciers in the modern era. Meanwhile, El Niño conditions in the first half of the year influenced rain patterns. For example, areas across the Amazonia and Pantanal regions in Brazil experienced widespread drought, where rainfall was 30 to 40 per cent below normal. Wildfires and floods Wildfires in the Amazon and Pantanal, as well as in central Chile, Mexico and Belize , were driven by drought and extreme heatwaves, breaking records in many countries. Wildfires in Chile resulted in over 130 deaths – the country’s worst disaster since the […]