2025 likely to be one of the 3 warmest years on record: WMO | India News

NEW DELHI: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Monday that the record temperatures of 2024 will likely continue next year and greenhouse gas (GHG) levels will rise to “observed record highs, ensuring even more warmth for the future.” .
The warning took into account the UK Met Office’s outlook for 2025, suggesting it is likely to be one of the three warmest years for global average temperature, just behind 2024 and 2023.
The WMO has already noted that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and is now almost certain to exceed the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900) for the first time. This follows the record high of 1.45 degrees C in 2023, the warmest year previously recorded.
“Today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat. The ten warmest years on record occurred in the last ten years, including 2024,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in his New Year message on Monday.
Referring to the WMO observation that 2015-2024 will be the ten warmest years on record, Guterres said: “This is climate breakdown, in real time. We must get off this path to ruin, and we have no time to waste. In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically reducing emissions and supporting the transition to a renewable future.”
As global temperatures rise and extreme heat events become more frequent and severe, the WMO also highlighted the growing need for greater international cooperation to address extreme heat risks.
Referring to a new report from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central, he noted that climate change intensified 26 of the 29 extreme weather events that killed at least 3,700 people and displaced millions in 2024.
“Every fraction of a degree of warming matters and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks. Temperatures are only part of the picture. Climate change manifests itself before our eyes almost daily in the form of an increased occurrence and impact of extreme weather events,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
However, the world meteorological body clarified again and again that one or more individual years exceeding 1.5 degrees C does not necessarily mean that “efforts should be made to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels”, as set out in the Paris Agreement. It is out of your reach.
“Exceeding the warming levels referred to in the Paris Agreement should be understood as exceeding over a prolonged period, typically decades or more, although the Agreement itself does not provide a specific definition,” the WMO said.