Global average temperatures hit their highest ever for the month of October, according to Copernicus, the European Union's Earth-monitoring service. October 2019 was 0.69 degrees Celsius warmer than the month's average between 1981 and 2010 – and 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer in Europe than the average for that period. 

It was reported earlier this week that Arctic sea ice reached a record low for October in 2019, and these October findings are no outliers. Copernicus reported last month that September 2019 was roughly 0.57 degrees Celsius above average, and October is the fifth successive month that temperatures have either broken records or almost done so. 

The Copernicus update comes in the week Italy announced plans for compulsory school education on climate change. The country's education minister, Lorenzo Fioramonti, outlined that from next September, children would receive 33 hours per year – almost one hour per school week – of learning on climate change and sustainable development and these topics would also be reflected elsewhere in the curriculum via subjects such as geography, physics and mathematics.

Also this week, 11,000 scientists from 153 nations released a statement that the global population faces "untold suffering due to the climate crisis" unless there are major changes in society. "We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency … we must change how we live," said the statement, released via the journal BioScience on the 40th anniversary of the world's first climate-change conference, held in Geneva in 1979.