The United Nations has issued a stark warning that there is a 70% chance the world’s average temperature will exceed the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold during the period 2025 to 2029. This projection is part of the latest annual report released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN agency responsible for climate and weather monitoring.
The report underscores the continuation of record-breaking heat trends witnessed in 2023 and 2024, signaling that the coming years will remain perilously hot. Ko Barrett, Deputy Secretary-General of WMO, stressed that the past decade includes the ten hottest years on record, and unfortunately, no significant cooling trend is expected in the near future. She highlighted that the rising temperatures will have wide-ranging effects on global economies, human health, ecosystems, and day-to-day life.
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement aimed to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to strive for a safer target of 1.5°C. This baseline compares to average temperatures recorded from 1850 to 1900, prior to the industrial revolution when fossil fuel consumption began to spike carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, driving climate change.
However, according to the WMO’s projections—based on data from several international meteorological centers including the UK Met Office—the average global temperature from 2025 to 2029 is expected to range between 1.2°C and 1.9°C above pre-industrial levels. This suggests a high likelihood of surpassing the 1.5°C guardrail.
Climate scientist Peter Thorne of Maynooth University in Ireland commented that the world is on track to permanently cross the 1.5°C warming limit in the early 2030s, with the probability of this happening expected to reach 100% within the next two to three years.
Moreover, the WMO report states there is an 80% chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029 will be hotter than 2024, which is currently the warmest year ever recorded globally. This continuing upward trend in temperatures reflects the growing challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally, which have instead been rising.
The report serves as a crucial reminder of the urgent need for intensified climate action worldwide to curb emissions and mitigate the impacts of global warming before irreversible damage occurs.