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Climate change exacerbated by human behavior is making 2025 one of the three hottest years on record, scientists say.
This is also the first time that the three-year average temperature has exceeded the threshold set by2015 Paris Agreementto limit heating to no more than1.5 degreesCelsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since the pre-industrial era. Experts say keeping the Earth below that limit is possiblesaving lives and preventing catastrophic environmental destructionall over the world.
The analysis from researchers at the World Weather Attribution, released Tuesday in Europe, comes after a year whenpeople all over the world are being beatenthrough the extreme dangers posed by a warming planet.
Temperatures remain high despite the presence of La Nina, the occasional natural cooling of Pacific Ocean waters that influences weather around the world. Researchers cite the continued burning of fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – which sends planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“If we don’t stop burning fossil fuels very, very, quickly, soon, it will be very difficult to continue that goal” of warming, Friederike Otto, co-founder of the World Weather Attribution and a climate scientist at Imperial College London, told The Associated Press. “The science is clearer.”
Extremes in 2025
Extreme weather events kill thousands of people and cause billions of dollars in damage each year.
WWA scientists have identified 157 extreme weather events that will be worst in 2025, meaning they meet criteria such as causing more than 100 deaths, affecting more than half of the area’s population or having a state of emergency declared. Of this, they carefully examined 22.
That’s includeddangerous heat waveswhich WWA says will be the world’s deadliest extreme weather events in 2025. Researchers say some of the heat waves they studied in 2025 are 10 times more likely than a decade ago because of climate change.
“The heat waves we observed this year are common occurrences in our current climate, but they would be almost impossible to occur without human-induced climate change,” Otto said. “It makes a big difference.”
Meanwhile, the prolonged drought contributed towildfires that burned in Greece and Turkey.Heavy rain and flooding in Mexicokilled dozens of people and left many more missing. Super Typhoon Fung-wongspoiled the Philippineswhich forced more than a million people to evacuate.Monsoon rainsfloods and landslides hit India.
WWA says that increasing and extreme extremes threaten the ability of millions of people around the world to respond and adapt to events with sufficient warning, time and resources, which scientists call “adaptation limits.” The report points to Hurricane Melissa as an example: The stormrapidly intensifiedthat it makes forecasting and planning more difficult, andbeating Jamaica, Cuba and Haitiso severe that it left small island nations unable to respond and manage its massive loss and damage.
Global climate negotiations are progressing
This year’s United Nations climate talks in Brazil in November ended without a clear plantransition from fossil fuelsand although more money has been pledged to help countries adapt to climate change, they will need more time to do so.
Officials, scientists, and analystsagreedEarth warmingto overshoot1.5 degreesCelsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), though some say a reversal of that trend remains possible.
Yet different countries have seen different levels of progress.
China israpid deployment of renewable energyincluding solar and wind power — but it also continues to invest in coal. Although persistent extreme weather has prompted calls for climate action across Europe,some countries say that limits economic growth. Meanwhile, in the US, theThe Trump administration is alienating the countryfrom clean energy policy in favor of measures that support coal, oil and gas.
“The geopolitical time is very cloudy this year with many policymakers who clearly make policies for the interests of the fossil fuel industry rather than for the populations of their countries,” Otto said. “And we have a lot of error and disinformation that people have to deal with.”
Andrew Kruczkiewicz, a senior researcher at the Columbia University Climate School who was not involved in the WWA work, said that places are seeing disasters they are not used to, extreme events are becoming more intense and they are becoming more complex. That requires earlier warnings and new methods of response and recovery, he said.
“On a global scale, progress has been made,” he added, “but we need to do more.”
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
