The World Meteorological Organization (WMO)’s State of the Climate report on Monday showed that the Earth is struggling with a record energy imbalance that is warming the oceans to unprecedented levels, causing increasingly extreme weather and threatening human health and food supplies. The organization warned that key indicators continued to deteriorate. TASR informs about it according to a report by the DPA agency and The Guardian newspaper.
In short:
- Earth is facing a record energy imbalance that is warming the world’s oceans at an unprecedented rate
- The years between 2015 and 2025 are among the warmest in recorded history
- Average global temperature in 2024 exceeded pre-industrial levels by 1.55 degrees Celsius
The WMO confirmed that the years between 2015 and 2025 were the 11 warmest years on record. According to the latest report on the state of the climate in 2025, the imbalance between the input and output of energy on Earth is rapidly deepening. Temperatures are rising, oceans are warming, glaciers are melting, and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise.
Record warming of the Earth
“It cannot be denied that these indicators are not moving in a very hopeful direction,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the situation as an emergency. “Humanity has just experienced the 11 warmest years in history. When history repeats itself 11 times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to action,” he declared.
Last year was the second or third warmest year on record, with an average temperature 1.43 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial era. The year 2024 was even warmer, with an average temperature up to 1.55 degrees Celsius higher. According to world leaders, serious consequences are already evident in the form of declining harvests, worsening dengue fever epidemics and increasingly intense heat waves, forest fires and storms.
Goals of the Paris Agreement
The Paris Climate Agreement aims to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to avoid the most serious consequences of climate change.
For the first time ever, the WMO highlighted the Earth’s energy imbalance as a key indicator. In a stable climate, the energy absorbed from the Sun would be balanced by the energy reflected back into space. However, human-caused greenhouse gas levels have reached their highest concentrations in 800,000 years, reducing the planet’s ability to release heat. More than 91 percent of excess energy is stored in the oceans, the organization said. The rate of ocean warming more than doubled between 1960 to 2005 and 2005 to 2025.
The WMO, which evaluates climate scientific knowledge from around the world, summarizes indicators such as temperatures, ice melting, greenhouse gas emissions and more.
