Global warming target unlikely to be reached, UN says
The chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 is to exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) benchmark stands at 70%, the United Nations (UN) said.
As a result, the Earth is expected to remain at historic levels of warming.
This comes after the planet experienced the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to a report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN's climate agency.
The WMO Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update (2025–2029) projects that global temperatures are expected to continue at or near record levels in the next five years.Check out the full update: https://t.co/a6LnmPmHZX pic.twitter.com/KOIborTWOM
— World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) May 28, 2025
WMO deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett said the past ten years have been the "the warmest on record," adding a warning that no respite is expected.
"This means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet," Barrett warned.
The 1.5-degree target was set as part of the 2015 Paris climate accords, which aimed to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celcius above pre-industrial levels.
It was calculated in relation to the 1850-1900 average, before humanity began industrially burning coal, oil and gas, all of which emit carbon dioxide (CO2), the greenhouse gas largely responsible for climate change.
A growing number of climate scientists now hold the 1.5-degree target to be impossible to achieve due to the increasing levels of CO2 emissions.
The WMO forecasts that the global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2025 and 2029 will be between 1.2 and 1.9 degrees Celcius above the pre-industrial average.
Peter Thorne, director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units group at the University of Maynooth, was cited by the AFP news agency as saying he expects the probability of passing 1.5 degrees Celcius on a long-term basis in the late 2020 or early 2030s to reach 100% in the next two to three years.
According to the WMO, the chance of at least one year between 2025 and 2020 being warmer than 2024, the warmest year on record, stands at 80%.
There is also an above-zero chance of at least one year in the next five exceeding 2 degrees of warming, despite it being "exceptionally unlikely," the report said.
Adam Scaife of the British Met Office — which compiled the report based on forecasts from multiple global centers — said it is the first time such a possibility arises in the organization's computer predictions, which he calls "shocking."
"That probability is going to rise," he added.
Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah
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