The hottest 12 months on document | Invesloan.com

Good morning and welcome to this week’s final edition of FirstFT Americas. Here’s what we’re covering today:

• 2024 becomes the warmest year on record

• The zoonotic disease threat

• And would you hide savings from your significant other?

The world breached 1.5C of warming last year for the first time, top international agencies said, as an “extraordinary” spike in the global average temperature sparked fears that climate change was accelerating faster than expected.

Europe’s Copernicus observation agency confirmed on Friday that 2024 was the hottest year on record, with average surface temperatures 1.6C above pre-industrial levels after greenhouse gas emissions hit a new high. Copernicus also said the years from 2015 to 2024 were the 10 warmest on record.

Last year was the first calendar year that average temperatures surpassed the 2015 Paris accord target of limiting warming since pre-industrial times to well under 2C and preferably to 1.5C.

The co-ordinated release of 2024 data from six climate-monitoring organisations comes just days before president-elect Donald Trump is expected to withdraw the US from the UN-brokered Paris climate agreement. Read more on the findings.

And here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• ‘Hush money’ trial: Donald Trump will face sentencing in New York after the US Supreme Court declined to grant the president-elect a last-minute reprieve.

• Economic data: Economists expect the number of new hires in the US to have fallen last month while the unemployment rate is expected to be steady. Brazil’s statistics agency publishes November inflation data.

• Results: Atlanta-headquartered Delta Air Lines and Constellation Brands, maker of America’s most popular beer, report earnings. Pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance is expected to update investors on its plans to go private alongside its results statement.

• Venezuela: Nicolás Maduro is set to be sworn in for his third presidential term following his disputed election win and a day after his government briefly detained an opposition leader.

• TikTok ban: The US Supreme Court hears arguments on a law that would ban the Chinese-owned platform if it is not sold to an American company.

What will Trump’s return mean for the world? Join FT experts and guests for a subscriber-only webinar on Jan 23. Register here for free.

Five more top stories

1. US president-elect Donald Trump confirmed yesterday he was in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to set up a meeting. “We’re gonna — we’re setting it up,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Meanwhile, European officials have told the Financial Times that Trump had pushed back his campaign pledge to end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours” to several months.

2. Andersen Consulting, one of the most powerful professional services brands of the 1990s, is to be resurrected after being dormant since 2000. The firm’s former parent company, auditor Arthur Andersen, collapsed in 2002 after the Enron accounting scandal. People familiar with the company said the historic brand planned to relaunch next month.

3. The most promising start-ups in Silicon Valley are finding ways to remain private for longer, dashing the hopes of investors waiting for blockbuster public listings to cash in their holdings. Recent tech deals have furnished the biggest start-ups with billions of dollars of new capital to continue growing without the need to go public. Read the full story.

4. A lawyer for Elon Musk has called on the California and Delaware attorneys-general to force OpenAI to auction off a large stake in its business. In a letter seen by the Financial Times, Marc Toberoff said big artificial intelligence investors wanted to participate in an open and competitive bidding process for the OpenAI stake. OpenAI had no plans for such an auction, said a person close to the company.

• More on Musk: The billionaire heaped praise on the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party as she joined him for a discussion about Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump and the existence of aliens.

• Election giveaway: Musk awarded his final $1mn prize of the 2024 election cycle to a Trump campaign worker, according to election filings.

5. JPMorgan yesterday doubled its estimates of the economic costs of the Los Angeles fires to nearly $50bn, with insured losses of $20bn. Allstate, Travelers and Chubb were among the most exposed insurers in the state, JPMorgan said. Many insurers have in recent years stopped providing cover for the most at-risk properties in the state.

• Fires latest: The death toll reached 10 and 10,000 structures had been destroyed, officials said yesterday, as high winds returned to the region.

How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.

Today’s Big Read

There is a high chance that “Disease X” — an as yet unknown pathogen that could cause the next pandemic — will be a zoonosis, or disease that can pass from animals to humans. Covid-19 was very likely to be zoonotic, and just this week, a worsening bird flu outbreak in the US claimed its first human fatality. Can we get better at halting such diseases before the next big pandemic?

We’re also reading . . . 

• Jimmy Carter: That America’s most moralistic president received his state funeral days before Trump’s return seemed almost divinely arranged, writes Edward Luce.

• Secret finances: A survey shows that more than a quarter of Britons in a long-term relationship hide savings or investment assets from their partner.

• AI: Agentic AI not general AI is the industry trend to watch this year, writes John Thornhill.

Chart of the day

Stock market investors are brushing aside economists’ gloomy predictions about US president-elect Donald Trump’s economic policies, betting that his plans will boost corporate earnings and power the market higher. Who is right about ‘Maganomics’? The FT spoke to economists and fund managers to dig into the differences.

Take a break from the news

To mark his 30th anniversary at the FT, columnist Simon Kuper looked back at the newspaper from his first day on the job. What he found was spookily familiar.