Jubilant crowds will bid farewell to the hottest year on record today, closing a turbulent 12 months marked by clever chatbots, climate crises and wrenching wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
The world’s population, now over eight billion, will see out the old and usher in the new, with many hoping to shake the weight of high living costs and global tumult.
In Sydney, the self-proclaimed “New Year’s capital of the world”, more than a million partygoers are expected to pack the city’s foreshore, despite uncharacteristically dank weather.
The city’s eight tonnes of fireworks will light the fuse on 2024, a year that will bring elections concerning half the world’s population and a summer Olympiad celebrated in Paris.
