Global warming has exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius over the past three years, meaning Earth is currently on course to break the Paris climate agreement by the end of the decade.
By Andrea Thompson edited by Claire Cameron
Amanda Montañez; Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data)
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First, the good news: 2025 was not the hottest year on record. Now the bad news: Last year was the third hottest on record, just behind 2023. More importantly, it caps three years in which global temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The data, released Tuesday by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), suggests we stand on the brink of a climate precipice.
“These three years stand out from those that came before,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, said at a press conference on Monday.
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The past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, underscoring a global warming trend driven by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If this trajectory does not change quickly, the world is on the verge of breaking the historic Paris climate agreement in 2015which directs countries to limit warming below 1.5 degrees C and “well below” two degrees C.
Amanda Montañez; Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data)
The global average temperature for 2025 was 1.47 degrees Celsius higher than the average from 1850 to 1900, according to the C3S. This is only 0.01 degrees C lower than in 2023; 2024 retains the title of hottest year on record, with a temperature 1.6°C above the pre-industrial global average. the first year, the temperature exceeds 1.5 °C.
The Paris Agreement considers average temperatures over several years. That’s why hitting a three-year warming milestone — and grouping together the warmest years of the last decade — is crucial evidence to show that we’re close to a breakout, likely by the end of this decade. This is more than a decade earlier than expected when the agreement was first negotiated, the C3S noted.
“The world is rapidly approaching the long-term temperature limit set by the Paris Agreement. We are forced to exceed it; the choice now is how best to manage the inevitable exceedance and its consequences on societies and natural systems,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S, in a statement.
Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement has been made even more difficult by the Trump administration, which has sought to restrict U.S. climate action at home and abroad. While his current mandate began a year ago, President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw the United States from the agreement.— a step he took during his first administration. And just a week ago, Trump announced that he would go even further, take the United States out of the climate treaty under which the Paris Agreement was negotiated, as well as several other related agreements.
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