This year ‘virtually certain’ to end up second or third warmest on record, Copernicus Climate Change Service says.
Published On 9 Dec 2025
The year 2025 is on track to be the second hottest on record, Europe’s climate monitor has said, in the latest warning that the planet’s climate is headed towards a catastrophic point of no return.
The global average temperature from January to November was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, making it “virtually certain” that 2025 will end up the second or third warmest year on record, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Tuesday.
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Last year was the warmest year on record, while 2023 was the second warmest.
While 2025 may not see temperatures reach 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels, the average global temperature for 2023-2025 is likely to exceed the threshold identified by scientists as the trigger for the worst effects of climate change, the monitor said.
“These milestones are not abstract – they reflect the accelerating pace of climate change, and the only way to mitigate future rising temperatures is to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.
The latest climate data follows a series of extreme weather events this year, including recent tropical storms in South and Southeast Asia that have left more than 1,800 people dead.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in October that the world would inevitably overshoot the 1.5C (2.7F) threshold, highlighting the importance of early warning systems to protect communities.
In a sign of the fraying global consensus on tackling climate change, the COP30 summit wrapped up in Brazil last month without an agreement on phasing out fossil fuels.
Bjorn H Samset, a scientist at the Center for International Climate Research in Norway, said the world would continue to experience the consequences of climate change as there was no prospect of temperatures coming down within a “meaningful time scale”.
“It’s therefore crucial that we also speed up our efforts to adapt, not just to the climate we’ve gotten now, but for the even warmer climate that we will see in coming decades,” Samset told Al Jazeera.
