Heat Rising: UN Forecasts 70% Chance of Climate Breakpoint
News Desk
Geneva: The planet is fast approaching a critical climate threshold, with a 70 percent chance that average global temperatures between 2025 and 2029 will exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius benchmark set under the Paris Agreement, according to a sobering new report by the United Nations.
Released on Wednesday by the UN’s weather and climate agency, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the report warns that Earth is likely to remain locked in historic levels of heat following the two warmest years ever recorded — 2023 and 2024.
“We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record,” said Ko Barrett, Deputy Secretary-General of the WMO. “Unfortunately, this report provides no sign of respite over the coming years. This means there will be growing negative impacts on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet.”
Targets Slipping Out of Reach
The 2015 Paris Agreement set out to limit global warming to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspirational goal of keeping it below 1.5°C. These targets were based on the global average temperature from 1850 to 1900, before widespread industrialization triggered a surge in fossil fuel emissions.
But that lower target now appears increasingly unattainable. Despite years of pledges and warnings, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions — the primary driver of climate change — continue to rise.
A growing number of climate scientists believe that the 1.5°C target has already slipped out of reach.
A Warming World
The WMO’s projections, compiled with support from the UK’s Met Office and other global forecasting centres, show a sharp uptick in global temperatures in the years ahead. The global near-surface temperature is forecasted to range between 1.2°C and 1.9°C above pre-industrial levels each year between 2025 and 2029.
The agency estimates a 70 percent likelihood that the five-year average will surpass 1.5°C.
“This is entirely consistent with our proximity to passing 1.5°C on a long-term basis in the late 2020s or early 2030s,” said Professor Peter Thorne, director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units at Maynooth University. “I would expect in two to three years this probability to be 100 percent.”
Even more alarming, there is now an 80 percent chance that at least one year in the upcoming five-year window will break the current heat record — set in 2024.
Beyond 1.5°C: A New Era of Risk
While long-term temperature assessments vary slightly depending on methodology, the trajectory is clear. The WMO’s analysis projects the 20-year average warming for the 2015–2034 period at 1.44°C.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service estimates current warming at around 1.39°C and predicts that the 1.5°C threshold could be reached by mid-2029 — or even earlier.
Worryingly, even the once-unthinkable 2°C milestone is now faintly on the radar. For the first time, forecasters say there is a 1 percent chance that a year within the next five could breach that limit.
“It is shocking,” said Dr. Adam Scaife of the UK Met Office. “That probability is going to rise. A decade ago, the chances of exceeding 1.5°C for even a single year were considered negligible. And yet, here we are.”
Dangerous Realities Already Unfolding
The impacts of this unprecedented warming are already being felt in catastrophic ways across the globe. Each incremental rise in temperature is intensifying heatwaves, droughts, flash floods, and accelerating the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps.
In recent weeks, record-shattering temperatures hit multiple countries — China sweltered above 40°C, the United Arab Emirates reached nearly 52°C, and Pakistan faced deadly dust storms after a brutal heatwave.
“We’ve already hit a dangerous level of warming,” warned Dr. Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London. “Relying on oil, gas and coal in 2025 is total lunacy.”
She pointed to the string of recent climate disasters — deadly floods in Australia, India, Algeria, France, and Ghana, and massive wildfires across Canada — as clear signs of escalating climate instability.
Arctic and Amazon on the Frontlines
The Arctic is expected to continue warming at a rate far above the global average over the next five years. Sea ice is projected to further decline in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, and the Sea of Okhotsk — critical areas that influence global weather patterns.
Meanwhile, the Amazon — often called the “lungs of the Earth” — may face drier-than-average conditions, raising alarm over biodiversity loss and the region’s ability to absorb carbon emissions.
Forecasts also indicate wetter-than-normal conditions in regions such as South Asia, northern Europe, the Sahel, Alaska, and northern Siberia — further complicating agricultural cycles, infrastructure resilience, and human health.
Act Now or Face Climate Disaster
The WMO’s message is unambiguous: the world is barreling toward a dangerous climate future unless immediate, transformative action is taken.
“This is not a distant risk. This is now,” said Barrett. “And the consequences are only going to grow more severe the longer we delay.”
Despite these warnings, fossil fuel dependence remains strong in many parts of the world. Scientists and climate advocates continue to stress the need to rapidly phase out coal, oil, and gas, invest in renewable energy, and implement climate-resilient policies on a global scale.
As the planet teeters on the edge of the 1.5°C line, this latest report is a stark reminder: the window for meaningful change is closing — but it is not yet closed.
