Geneva, Nov 6. The global average temperature between January and August 2025 was 1.42°C higher than the pre-industrial era, a figure 13 hundredths lower than that of the entire year 2024, the warmest on record, although it remains close to the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Agreement, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warns.
In its report presented this Thursday ahead of the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP30) in the Brazilian city of Belém, the UN agency highlights that, despite the moderation in temperatures so far observed in 2025, «the trend towards extreme warming continues» and this year will be the second or third warmest on record.
The slight decrease in 2025 compared to 2024, when the average temperature was 1.55°C above the pre-industrial level (1850-1900), is explained in part, according to the WMO, by last year being influenced by the El Niño phenomenon, usually linked to temperature rises, whereas in 2025 there have been neutral or certain cooling conditions, linked to the opposite La Niña phenomenon.
Despite the slight respite, the meteorological organization warns that the trend of global warming continues unabated: the 11 years since 2015 have been the warmest in 176 years of records, and 2023, 2024, and 2025 will take the top three spots.
The WMO also recalls that there was a 26-month streak, from June 2023 to August 2025, during which record monthly temperatures were registered, with the exception of February of this year.
«Exceeding the 1.5°C limit 'practically impossible'»
«This extraordinary streak of high temperatures, combined with the record increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in 2024, makes it clear that it will be practically impossible to limit global warming to 1.5°C in the coming years without temperatures temporarily exceeding that threshold,» admitted WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo upon the report's publication.
«But science is also unequivocal in stating that it is still completely possible and essential to reduce temperatures to contain warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century,» added the Argentine meteorologist, who is participating this Thursday in the preparatory leaders' summit for COP30, also in Belém.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres added in this regard that «every year the 1.5°C threshold is exceeded, economies will be severely affected, inequalities will be exacerbated, and irreversible damage will occur».
Guterres urged for rapid and «large-scale» action so that the threshold is exceeded «as little and as briefly as possible» and so that temperatures return below the limit recommended not to be exceeded in the Paris Agreement by the end of the century.
The WMO also calls for adaptation to climate change by all countries in the face of its already palpable effects and, in this regard, recalls the need for all countries to have early warning systems for disasters by 2027.
The organization recently held an extraordinary conference in Geneva to boost this goal and highlighted that the number of countries with early warning systems has increased from 56 in 2019 to 119 in 2024, although 40% of nations still lack them, including island nations in serious danger.
More worrying figures
The report presented by the WMO for COP30 also recalls that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, has increased by 53% since the pre-industrial era to 423.9 parts per million in 2024.
In Belém, Saulo warned that greenhouse gas concentrations are «the highest in 800,000 years» and are leading «to a warmer and more dangerous future».
The WMO also warns that the rise in sea level, a result of rising ocean temperatures and the melting of poles and glaciers, has accelerated from an average of 2.1 millimeters per year between 1993 and 2002 to 4.1 millimeters per year between 2016 and 2025, with a slight decrease this year due to factors such as La Niña.
Arctic sea ice in March 2025, at its peak extent, reached only 13.8 million square kilometers, its lowest value since satellite records began, and in Antarctica, its ice extent reached its third lowest on record this year.
