If global warming continues at its current pace, the most important global climate goal could be missed by the end of this decade. The European climate service Copernicus warns of this in an annual report.
The last eleven years have been the warmest on record – an undeniable trend toward a warmer climate – the Copernicus Climate Change Service warns. 2024 was the warmest year since registrations began, with a global average temperature of 14.98 degrees Celsius – last year’s was 14.97 degrees.
This means that last year, the global average temperature was 1.47 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial level from 1850 to 1900. January 2025 was the warmest January on record globally. March, April, and May were each the second-warmest for their time of year. Each month of the year, except for February and December, was warmer than the corresponding month in any year before 2023.
Paris Climate Agreement
In 2024, the global average temperature surpassed the symbolic 1.5 degrees Celsius mark above pre-industrial levels for the first time, reaching 1.6 degrees Celsius, just as the 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The average over the past three years is 1.52 degrees above pre-industrial levels, thus exceeding the Paris Agreement target.
This is the first time this has happened. But C3S expects the 1.5-degree long-term warming barrier to be reached by the end of this decade, ten years earlier than expected. And that’s not good news.
“The world is rapidly approaching the long-term temperature limit set by the Paris Agreement,” notes Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “We will inevitably exceed this limit.”
Climate change
Since the signing of the Paris Agreement, it has become increasingly clear that the consequences of climate change will worsen beyond 1.5 degrees. Every tenth of a degree means an increased risk of extreme storms, flooding, and dangerous tipping points in climate systems, climate experts have been emphasizing for years.
C3S sees several explanations for this. Atmospheric data from 2025 show that human activity remains the primary cause of the extreme temperatures we observe. The combustion of oil, gas, and coal has steadily increased the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Global warming
On top of that, sea surface temperatures have reached extremely high levels, partly due to El Niño, partly due to a decrease in cloud cover and variations in atmospheric circulation. Global sea-surface temperature (extrapolar) was 20.73ºC, and the third-warmest after 2024 and 2023.
According to Copernicus, Antarctica experienced record-breaking temperatures in 2025. The Arctic had the second-highest annual temperature. Because tropical regions were slightly cooler than the previous year, no absolute heat record was set.
