PARIS/WASHINGTON: The year 2025 was the third hottest on record, extending an unprecedented streak of extreme global heat, with scientists warning that the warming trend is set to continue into 2026, according to reports released Wednesday by US researchers and the European Union’s climate monitoring agency.
Data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and Berkeley Earth, a US-based non-profit research organisation, show that the last 11 years have been the warmest ever recorded, with 2024 ranking as the hottest year and 2023 second.
For the first time, average global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels over a three-year period, Copernicus said in its annual assessment. Scientists view this threshold as critical to avoiding the most severe impacts of climate change.
“The warming spike observed from 2023 to 2025 has been extreme and suggests an acceleration in the rate of global warming,” Berkeley Earth said in a separate report.
The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to cap it at 1.5°C. However, Copernicus warned that the 1.5°C threshold could be reached by the end of this decade, more than ten years earlier than previously projected.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has cautioned that breaching the 1.5°C limit is increasingly inevitable, stressing that rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions could still shorten the period of overshoot.
In another setback for global climate efforts, US President Donald Trump announced last week that the United States—the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China—would withdraw from the UN climate treaty.
According to Copernicus, global temperatures in 2025 averaged 1.47°C above pre-industrial levels, slightly cooler than 2023, while 2024 recorded an increase of 1.6°C. Berkeley Earth reported that around 770 million people experienced record-high annual temperatures in their regions last year, while no part of the world recorded a record-cold annual average.
The Antarctic registered its warmest year on record, while the Arctic experienced its second hottest, the EU agency said. An earlier AFP analysis of Copernicus data found that Central Asia, the Sahel and northern Europe also endured their hottest year ever in 2025.
Both Copernicus and Berkeley Earth warned that 2026 is unlikely to reverse the warming trend. Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said the possible return of the El Niño climate phenomenon could make 2026 another record-breaking year.
“Temperatures are rising, and new records are inevitable,” Buontempo said. “Whether it happens in 2026 or a few years later, the direction is unmistakable.”
Berkeley Earth expects 2026 to be comparable to 2025, most likely ranking as the fourth warmest year since records began in 1850.
The findings come amid slowing progress on cutting emissions in developed economies. US greenhouse gas emissions rose last year, ending a two-year decline, driven by increased energy demand from harsh winters and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, according to the Rhodium Group. Emissions reductions have also slowed in Germany and France.
Berkeley Earth’s chief scientist Robert Rohde said that while greenhouse gas emissions remain the primary driver of warming, recent temperature spikes suggest additional contributing factors, including changes in air pollution. The organisation noted that international rules introduced in 2020 to curb sulfur in ship fuel may have inadvertently added to warming by reducing sunlight-reflecting aerosols in the atmosphere.
By AFP
