UN Warns Next Five Years Will Shatter Climate Records

The World Meteorological Organization issued a stark warning this week, saying there is an 86 percent chance that at least one year between 2026 and 2030 will surpass 2024 as the hottest year ever recorded. The forecast represents one of the strongest probabilistic climate assessments the UN agency has ever published.

The report found a 91 percent likelihood that global average temperatures will temporarily exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels during at least one year in the five-year window. The 1.5-degree threshold was established as the aspirational limit of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said the findings should serve as a call to action. “The window for avoiding the most damaging impacts of climate change is narrowing rapidly,” she told reporters in Geneva. The agency projected that the Arctic will warm by nearly 1.7 degrees Celsius in the five years to 2030, roughly three times the global average rate.

The report found a 75 percent chance that the five-year average temperature between 2026 and 2030 will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial norms, a finding suggesting a sustained shift in the global climate baseline rather than individual record years alone.

The forecast factored in the lingering heat from the 2024 El Niño event and the likely return of El Niño conditions by 2027 or 2028. A heat wave that struck the southwestern United States in April 2026 was named by Yale Climate Connections as one of the six most extreme weather events of the 21st century, with daytime highs reaching 116 degrees Fahrenheit in some locations.

The WMO cautioned that the five-year forecast also showed growing risk of drought for the Amazon basin and continued vulnerability to severe flooding across South and Southeast Asia. See earlier climate reporting on World Environment Day warnings and the AMOC weakening findings. The agency called for urgent investment in early warning systems. For the WMO’s full report see the World Meteorological Organization website.