Earth logged its third-hottest year on record in 2025, figures released on Wednesday showed, extending an unprecedented run of global heat and pushing the planet closer to a key warming limit.
The past 11 years are now the warmest ever recorded, with 2024 the hottest and 2023 in second place, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and the US-based research group Berkeley Earth said.
For the first time, global temperatures averaged more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels over a three-year period, Copernicus said in its annual report.
Average global temperatures in 2025 were 1.47C above pre-industrial times, just below 2023 and following 1.6C in 2024, Copernicus said.
Data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts showed 2025 was only 0.01C cooler than 2023.
Britain’s Met Office also ranked 2025 as the third-hottest year since records began in 1850.
“The warming spike observed from 2023-2025 has been extreme, and suggests an acceleration in the rate of the Earth’s warming,” Berkeley Earth said in its report.
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A key limit in sight
Under the Paris Agreement, governments pledged to limit global warming to well below 2C and to try to keep it to 1.5C over the long term – a level scientists say would help reduce the worst impacts of climate change.
Copernicus said the 1.5C threshold “could be reached by the end of this decade – over a decade earlier than predicted”.
UN chief Antonio Guterres warned in October that breaching 1.5C was “inevitable”, but said cutting greenhouse gas emissions faster could limit how long the world remains above that level.
Copernicus Climate Change Service director Carlo Buontempo told the French news agency AFP: “We are bound to pass it. The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences.”
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No break ahead
The record heat is also being felt across the planet. Berkeley Earth said around 770 million people experienced record-warm conditions in 2025, while no place recorded a record-cold annual average.
The Antarctic logged its warmest year on record, while the Arctic had its second-hottest, Copernicus said.
Both Copernicus and Berkeley Earth warned the trend is unlikely to reverse in the near future. If the El Nino weather pattern develops this year, “this could make 2026 another record-breaking year”, Buontempo told AFP.
Berkeley Earth said the most likely outcome is that 2026 ranks as the fourth-warmest year since 1850.
(with newswires)
