Global warming beyond 1.5 degrees already by 2029, according to the WMO
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
Over the next five years, global warming will keep temperatures at record levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Global warming beyond 1.5 degrees already by 2029, according to the WMO
Over the next five years, global warming will keep temperatures at record levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Over the course of the next five years, the global warming process that has been under way on Earth for decades will keep average temperatures at record levels, or close to such thresholds. This will only heighten climate risks and the repercussions for communities, economies and sustainable development. The warning is contained in the latest annual report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), published on 26 May in collaboration with the United Kingdom's Meteorological Service (Met Office).
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: bit.ly/43ySTEm
Check out the full update: bit.ly/43ySTEm
The WMO: "The repercussions on economies, society and the Planet will increase"
The trajectory of global warming, in short, is not set to change — at least not in the immediate future. Temperatures over land and ocean surfaces will remain close to the figures recorded over the past two years, 2023 and 2024, which proved to be the hottest on record. This is, moreover, a dynamic that has been sustained for some time: "We have just experienced the hottest decade ever recorded. Unfortunately, this WMO report offers no sign of change. That means the negative repercussions on our economies, our daily lives and our Planet will increase," explained the organisation's Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett.
The forecast contained in the report indicates that the global average temperature for the period 2025–2029 is expected to be between 1.2 and 1.9 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — that is, before human beings began burning fossil fuels. In particular, the WMO specifies, "there is an 80 per cent probability that at least one of these five years will break the all-time record (currently held by 2024). Furthermore, there is an 86 per cent probability that at least one of the five years in question will exceed pre-industrial values by 1.5 degrees."
In the next five years we will very likely touch even 2°C of global warming
This is the threshold identified by the Paris Agreement as the most ambitious target the international community should strive for: the reality is that every tenth of a degree counts, and efforts to limit global warming must therefore be immediate and drastic. For the 1.5-degree limit to be considered breached, however, it must occur over a sustained period: 2024 could, in theory, represent an exception.
What is particularly alarming, though, is precisely the forecast for the coming years. Data from the World Meteorological Organization show that "there is a 70 per cent probability that the next five-year period as a whole will exceed the 1.5-degree threshold." This also represents an enormous increase compared to the 47 per cent probability that appeared in last year's report, and an even more pronounced rise compared to the 32 per cent indicated in the document published in 2023. Not only that: according to the Met Office, consideration must be given even to the eventuality — albeit remote, in the order of a 1 per cent probability — that one of the next five years could surpass even the other threshold set by the Paris Agreement: that of 2 degrees Celsius. In other words, the less ambitious target within the range indicated by governments around the world.
All of this will likely translate into a multiplication of the impacts of the climate crisis. The WMO itself underlines that "each additional fraction of a degree of warming intensifies heatwaves, extreme precipitation, severe droughts, the melting of ice sheets and polar caps, and sea level rise."
A new report from @WMO warns global temperatures may breach critical thresholds in 5 years.
Amid disinfo and denial, how do scientists share the health risks while coping with the toll of studying a warming world?
bit.ly/4jAPrQH
🌡️🌍#climatechange
Amid disinfo and denial, how do scientists share the health risks while coping with the toll of studying a warming world?
bit.ly/4jAPrQH
🌡️🌍#climatechange
Drought in the Amazon and +2.4°C in the Arctic
In particular, the report specifies that warming in the Arctic region over the next five winters is expected to be at least 3.5 times greater than the global average — exceeding the 30-year average (1991–2020) by at least 2.4 degrees Celsius. As a consequence, ice concentrations in the Barents, Bering and Okhotsk seas are forecast to decline further.
Over the same period, the average amount of precipitation is expected to increase in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia. But it is above all in South Asia that rainfall is projected to be more intense in the coming years. Conversely, the WMO indicates that low rainfall conditions in the Amazon region are likely, which could further aggravate the already catastrophic fires recorded in recent times.
At Cop30, governments' emissions reduction pledges will be scrutinised
It is therefore "essential to continue monitoring the climate and producing forecasts to provide policymakers with scientific tools and information that will facilitate adaptation", Barrett added. A certain "share" of the impacts of the climate crisis is, after all, now inevitable — indeed, already present in our lives. Adapting to it means limiting material damage and economic and social impacts, and above all it means saving lives.
In 2024, wildfires in the Amazon and Pantanal regions, central Chile, Mexico and Belize were fueled by drought and extreme heatwaves, breaking records in many countries.
More on #StateOfClimate in Latin America and the Caribbean here: bit.ly/3QVlVbD
More on #StateOfClimate in Latin America and the Caribbean here: bit.ly/3QVlVbD
It is no coincidence that the next United Nations climate conference, Cop30, to be held in Belém, in Brazil, in November, will focus precisely on analysing the emissions reduction pledges put forward by governments around the world (the Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs). These are the documents in which each country sets out its own contribution: the commitments made so far would lead to global warming of 2.4–2.6 degrees Celsius. Provided they are fully honoured — something that, for example, Trump's United States has already made clear it has no intention of doing.