WMO Report Highlights Urgent Need for Climate Action

This projection emphasizes the urgent need for intensified efforts to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has issued a stark warning, revealing an 80% likelihood that the global average temperature will temporarily exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels at least once within the next five years. This projection emphasizes the urgent need for intensified efforts to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Key Findings from the WMO Report

Temperature Projections:

The global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2024 and 2028 is expected to be 1.1°C to 1.9°C higher than the 1850-1900 baseline.

There is an 86% chance that at least one of these years will set a new temperature record, surpassing 2023, which is currently the warmest year on record.

Likelihood of Exceeding 1.5°C:

The likelihood of global temperature exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the entire 2024-2028 period is 47%, up from 32% for the 2023-2027 period.

The probability of at least one of the next five years exceeding the 1.5°C threshold has increased from near zero in 2015 to 80% currently.

Contributing Factors:

The rise in temperatures is driven by long-term climate warming and exacerbated by events such as the El Niño phenomenon.

Global and Regional Impacts

The report underscores the severe consequences of rising global temperatures, including more frequent and intense heatwaves, extreme rainfall, droughts, and the accelerated melting of ice sheets and glaciers. These changes are already resulting in devastating impacts on ecosystems, economies, and communities worldwide.

Calls for Immediate Action

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in a major speech ahead of the G-7 summit, urged for more ambitious climate action:

"We are playing Russian roulette with our planet. We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell. The battle to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees will be won or lost in the 2020s – under the watch of leaders today."

Supporting Evidence

The European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service has reported that each of the past 12 months has set a new global temperature record for that time of year, with the average temperature for the last 12 months being the highest on record at 1.63°C above the pre-industrial average.

Strategic Responses

Ko Barrett, WMO Deputy Secretary-General, emphasized the critical need for reducing greenhouse gas emissions:

"We must urgently do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions, or we will pay an increasingly heavy price in terms of trillions of dollars in economic costs, millions of lives affected by more extreme weather, and extensive damage to the environment and biodiversity."

The report was produced by the UK's Met Office, synthesizing predictions from WMO-designated Global Producing Centres and other contributing centers.

Looking Forward

Despite the bleak projections, the WMO stresses that temporary breaches of the 1.5°C threshold do not mean the Paris Agreement goals are permanently out of reach. Continued efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations could still allow for a return to lower temperatures by the end of the century.

"We are living in unprecedented times, but we also have unprecedented skill in monitoring the climate and this can help inform our actions," said Carlo Buontempo, Director of Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The report calls for immediate and sustained global efforts to reduce emissions, highlighting the critical decade ahead for climate action.

The WMO's latest findings serve as an urgent reminder of the accelerating pace of climate change and the need for concerted global efforts to mitigate its impacts. The increasing likelihood of exceeding the 1.5°C threshold underscores the necessity for immediate, robust action to adhere to the Paris Agreement's goals and prevent the most catastrophic outcomes of global warming.