This year has been the hottest year on record, pushing the world deeper into the climate crisis and threatening “irreparable damage,” the United Nations says in a new report.
2023, 2024 and 2025 are on track to be the hottest years on record, and this year is on track to be the second or third warmest in 176 years of record, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a report released Thursday ahead of the COP30 United Nations climate summit in Brazil next week.
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The United Nations report makes some grim observations, including warning that while the last 11 years from 2015 to 2025 have been the warmest 11 years in a row, greenhouse gas concentrations have risen to record highs, locking in even more heat into the future.
Taken together, these developments “make clear that it will be virtually impossible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Celsius) in the coming years,” WMO Director-General Celeste Sauro said in a statement, referring to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
The legally binding agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions was intended to provide the world with a roadmap to move away from fossil fuels, which have powered the world economy since the Industrial Revolution, and aimed to limit global warming to well below 2C (3.6F), and if possible 1.5C, above pre-industrial levels.
However, the world has fallen short of its Paris obligations, and the WMO now says it is virtually impossible to limit global warming to the 2015 agreement’s goals.
“This unprecedented stretch of high temperatures, combined with last year’s record increase in greenhouse gas levels, makes it virtually impossible to limit global warming to 1.5°C in the coming years without temporarily exceeding this goal,” Sauro said. “But the science is equally clear that it is still entirely possible and essential to reduce temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.”
WMO said in a report that average near-ground temperatures (about 2 meters (6 feet) above ground) in the first eight months of this year were 1.42 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Celsius) above the pre-industrial average.
At the same time, concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the heat content of the oceans continued to rise this year, surpassing levels already recorded in 2024.
The United Nations Environment Program confirmed in its annual report on Tuesday that greenhouse gas emissions rose a further 2.3% last year, with India leading the increase, followed by China, Russia and Indonesia.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday at the opening of a summit in Brazil ahead of COP30 that failure to curb rising global temperatures is a “moral failure”.
“Temperatures above 1.5 degrees Celsius each year will devastate economies, deepen inequality and cause irreversible damage. We must act now, at scale and quickly, to make the overshoot as small, short and safe as possible, bringing temperatures back below 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century,” Guterres said.
“Significant progress”
The WMO said the effects of rising temperatures are reflected in the extent of Arctic sea ice, which after this winter’s freeze was the lowest on record.
Meanwhile, the amount of sea ice in Antarctica is significantly below average throughout the year.
The UN agency also highlighted a number of extreme weather and climate-related events in the first eight months of 2025 that will have “cascading impacts on lives, livelihoods and food systems,” from devastating floods to extreme heat and wildfires.
In this context, WMO praised the “significant progress” in multi-hazard early warning systems, stressing that they are “more important than ever”.
The number of countries reporting such schemes has more than doubled since 2015, from 56 to 119, the report said.
It particularly praises the progress made in the world’s least developed countries and small island developing States, where access has increased by 5% in the last year alone.
However, he lamented that 40% of countries around the world still do not have such early warning systems.
“Urgent action is needed to close these remaining gaps,” the report said.
