The latest analysis from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows that 2025 is on track to be the world’s second or third hottest year ever recorded, very likely only just behind 2024.
This emerging record signals that the planet has now spent three consecutive years with global average temperatures more than 1.5°C above pre‑industrial levels—an alarming benchmark with profound scientific, social, and policy implications.
The 1.5°C Threshold: What It Really Means
The 1.5°C threshold is not an arbitrary number.
It is the central guardrail established by the 2015 Paris Agreement, intended to limit the most dangerous and irreversible impacts of climate change.
The reference period—1850 to 1900—represents a time before large-scale fossil fuel use began disrupting the Earth’s energy balance.
Exceeding 1.5°C on an annual or multi‑year basis does not mean we have permanently crossed the Paris Agreement’s long‑term target, which is defined over multi‑decade averages.
However, it is a clear warning that we are moving rapidly into the temperature range scientists have long associated with escalating risks.
From Warning to Reality
In recent years, climate models and observations have converged: without rapid and substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the world is likely to lock in long‑term warming beyond 1.5°C.
The United Nations has now acknowledged that staying within this limit is no longer realistic under current policies, underscoring the gap between international promises and real‑world action.
Why Temperatures Are Rising So Fast
The primary driver of this warming trend is clear and well‑documented: greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, combined with land‑use changes like deforestation.
These activities increase atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, trapping heat and altering the climate system.
C3S’s temperature records, which are operational from 1940 and cross‑checked against datasets extending back to 1850, offer a robust, independent line of evidence.
Multiple international datasets tell a consistent story: the last decade has been the warmest on record, and the rate of warming is accelerating.
Evidence From Multiple Lines of Data
Global temperature is only one indicator of change.
It is reinforced by observed trends in:
Extreme Weather: Climate Change in Real Time
The impacts of this warming are not abstract projections; they are now visible in our daily news.
The year 2025 has already seen extreme events that bear the fingerprints of climate change.
Typhoon Kalmaegi in the Philippines and Spain’s worst wildfires in three decades are emblematic of a broader global pattern.
Warmer oceans can feed more intense tropical cyclones, while higher temperatures and altered rainfall patterns create conditions ripe for large, fast‑moving wildfires.
From Attribution Science to Adaptation Needs
Advances in extreme event attribution allow scientists to estimate how much more likely or more intense specific events have become due to human‑driven climate change.
This emerging field has consistently shown that many of today’s heatwaves, heavy rainfall events, and wildfire outbreaks are made significantly more probable by our altered climate.
These findings inform risk assessments, infrastructure design, insurance models, and public health planning.
All of these must now account for a climate that is no longer stable.
Policy Stagnation Amid Escalating Risks
Against this backdrop, the conclusion of the COP30 climate summit without meaningful new commitments to reduce emissions is especially troubling.
Negotiations have been hampered by geopolitical tensions and the rollback of climate policies in several major economies, notably the United States.
This policy inertia stands in sharp contrast to what the science demands.
To stabilize the climate, global emissions must not only peak rapidly but decline steeply over the next decade, primarily through:
The Urgency of the Next Decade
Experts warn that the current string of climate records—hotter years, higher ocean temperatures, and more destructive extremes—are not isolated anomalies, but milestones in a rapidly closing window of opportunity.
Every year of delay locks in more warming, more damage, and costlier adaptation needs.
The projected ranking of 2025 as one of the hottest years on record is therefore more than a historical footnote.
It is a stark, measurable signal that the world is drifting further from the Paris Agreement’s goals and closer to climate tipping points that will be difficult, and in some cases impossible, to reverse.
As the data from C3S and other scientific institutions make abundantly clear, the physics of the climate system will not wait for politics to catch up.
Here is the source article for this story: Extreme weather continued to hit regions around the globe this year