Global temperatures may top 1.5C in next five years, says UN

GENEVA: The United Nations warned on Wednesday that there is a 70 percent chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 would exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius international benchmark.

The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to an annual climate report published by the World Meteorological Organisation, the UN´s weather and climate agency. “We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record,” said the WMO´s deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett.

“Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet.”

The 2015 Paris climate accords aimed to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels -- and to pursue efforts to peg it at 1.5C. The targets are calculated relative to the 1850-1900 average, before humanity began industrially burning coal, oil and gas, which emit carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the greenhouse gas largely responsible for climate change.

The more optimistic 1.5C target is one that growing numbers of climate scientists now consider impossible to achieve, as CO2 emissions are still increasing.

The WMO´s latest projections are compiled by Britain´s Met Office national weather service, based on forecasts from multiple global centres.