There is an 80pc likelihood that the average global temperature across one of the next five years will breach the 1.5°C goal of the Paris climate agreement, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said today.
The Paris agreement seeks to limit global warming to "well below" 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and preferably to 1.5°C. Climate scientists use a time period of 1850-1900 as a pre-industrial baseline. But shorter-term warming, over a year or so, "does not equate to a permanent breach" of the Paris agreement goal, the WMO said.
The chance of one of the next five years breaching the 1.5°C goal "has risen steadily since 2015, when such a chance was close to zero", the WMO said.
It is also very likely that one of the next five years — 2024-28 — will be the hottest on record, with an 86pc chance of this happening, the organisation added. The warmest year on record was last year, at 1.45°C above pre-industrial levels.
There is also a 47pc chance that the global temperature average over the entire period of 2024-28 will surpass the 1.5°C limit, the WMO said. The likelihood of this happening over 2023-27 was at 32pc.
In a separate report today, EU earth-monitoring service Copernicus confirmed that last month was the warmest May on record globally. The average temperature for May was 1.52°C above pre-industrial levels, making it the 11th consecutive month at or higher than 1.5°C above that baseline, Copernicus said. The global average temperature for the past 12 months — June 2023-May 2024 — is the highest on record, at 1.63°C above the pre-industrial average, Copernicus data show.
"The battle to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C will be won or lost in the 2020s," UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said today, in a speech marking World Environment Day. "It's climate crunch time," he added.
Guterres spoke ahead of the G7 summit, set for 13-15 June in southern Italy. The G7 countries are Italy — which holds the presidency this year — Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US. The EU is a non-enumerated member. G7 finance ministers placed climate firmly on the agenda in a communique released after their meeting in late May.
