The world is dangerously close to the 1.5°C warming limit set in the Paris Agreement. According to a comprehensive new report, human-caused warming will reach 1.37°C in 2025.
Based on analysis by more than 70 scientists from 56 institutions across 17 countries, the 1.5°C threshold will be exceeded around 2030 if emissions continue at their current level.
Emissions and carbon budget raise alarm
The fourth edition of the Global Climate Change Indicators, published today, tracks the key measurements showing how fast and why the climate is changing. According to the report, the world is warming at an accelerating pace, almost entirely due to human activities.
Dr. William Lamb, a senior researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said greenhouse gas emissions are at their highest level ever, predominantly caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
The report emphasizes that by investing in renewable energy and electrification, governments can both reduce emissions and build cleaner, more reliable and more secure energy systems.
The carbon budget is defined as the total amount of CO2 that can still be released into the atmosphere while keeping warming below 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels. According to the report, as of early 2026 this budget stands at only 130 billion tonnes and will be completely exhausted in about three years at current emission levels.
The 1.5-degree limit stands out as one of the core pillars of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to prevent the most devastating impacts of the climate crisis. Global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record 56.8 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2024, mainly from burning fossil fuels.
The atmospheric concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — have been rising since 2019. The CO2 concentration currently stands at 425.6 parts per million.
Dr. Matt Palmer of the UK Met Office said more greenhouse gases are being emitted than ever before, raising their levels in the atmosphere and trapping increasingly more heat.
The planet's energy balance is deteriorating
The report reveals that the planet's energy imbalance — the difference between the heat entering Earth and the heat radiated back into space — has more than doubled in recent decades and has now reached a record level.
According to Dr. Karina Von Schuckmann of the French research institute Mercator Ocean International, this is causing changes in every component of the climate system, including ocean and land warming, permafrost thaw, ice loss and sea level rise.
Global sea levels set another record in 2025. The total rise since 1901 has reached 23 centimetres, and the rate of increase is accelerating. Because the oceans absorb most of the excess heat, average sea surface temperatures rose to the second-highest level ever recorded last year.
A new indicator added to this year's report also reveals the scale of marine heatwaves. The number of affected days more than tripled globally between 1991 and 2025; in 2025 alone, the world experienced 65 days under marine heatwave conditions that damage ecosystems, threaten fish stocks and disrupt ocean-atmosphere systems.
The picture on land is similar. Average maximum land temperatures over the last decade were measured nearly half a degree higher than the previous decade. Dr. Samantha Burgess of the Copernicus Climate Change Service said almost all of the warming in the last decade was caused by human activities.
The scientists behind the report point out that the global datasets used to monitor these changes are also under threat. Dr. Chris Smith warned that without data, making assessments in the future will be far more difficult.
The text notes that the Trump administration's decision last year to shelve the US State Department's global air quality monitoring programme, along with budget cuts, is creating dangerous gaps in the evidence base underpinning climate science and policy.
