The Earth’s surface houses 80% chance that the average annual temperature temporarily and for the first time reaches 1.5 degrees of warming in the next five years with respect to preindustrial levels. This is reflected in the report ‘Annual to ten-year global climate bulletin’, prepared by the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (Met Office), which is the main center of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for this type of predictions.

It is a publication that is updated every year based on the knowledge of renowned climatologists and the best computer models from climate centers around the world, under the coordination of the WMO, a UN agency specialized in weather, climate And the water. The report presents a summary of the temperature predictions for the five years between 2024 and 2028.

Thus, there is an 80% chance that the annual global average surface temperature temporarily exceed by more than 1.5 degrees pre-industrial levels for at least one of the next five years, which would exceed the global warming limit set out in the Paris Agreement.

That probability that the Earth will reach 1.5 degrees of climate warming for the first time in the next five years has increased steadilysince in 2015 it was almost zero, 20% for the five years between 2017 and 2021, 50% between 2022 and 2026, 66% between 2023 and 2027, and 80% between 2024 and 2028.

Furthermore, the report states that there is a 47% chance that the global average temperature in the five-year period 2024-2028 exceed pre-industrial levels by 1.5 degreescompared to 32% in last year’s report for the period between 2023 and 2027.

“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet”

The report indicates that the average temperature near the surface of the planet as a whole each year between 2024 and 2028 could be between 1.1 and 1.9 degrees above the reference period of 1850 to 1900. In addition, there is an 86% probability that at least one of these five years will break the annual temperature record, above that of 2023, which is currently the warmest ever recorded.

This is a clear warning that the Earth is inching closer to the goals set out in the Paris Agreement on climate change, which refer to long-term temperature increases over decades, not one to five years.

“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet“said the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, in light of that report and before the next G7 summit, which will be held in Italy from June 13 to 15. Guterres added: “We have to find a way out of this highway that takes us to climate hell. The good news is that we have control of the steering wheel. “The fight to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees will be won or lost in the 2020s, as current leaders watch.”

Guterres also relied on data from the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service, operated by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which showed that each of the last 12 months recorded a new all-time high. global temperature for that time of year. Taking into account these 12 monthly recordsthe global average temperature of the last 12 months (June 2023 to May 2024) is also the highest ever recorded: 1.63 degrees above the average value of the pre-industrial era (1850-1900), according to the set of ERA5 data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“These statistics reveal the harsh reality: We are very far from meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement“said Ko Barrett, deputy secretary-general of the WMO. Barrett stressed: “It is imperative that we step up work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or we will pay an increasingly high price in trillions of dollars in economic costs, millions of lives affected by a more extreme climate and great damage to the environment and biodiversity. definitely the 1.5 degree target, as this limit refers to long-term warming over decades.”

What does the Paris Agreement say?

Under the Paris Agreement, countries should keep the long-term global average surface temperature rise well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5°C by the end of this century. The scientific community has repeatedly warned that warming greater than 1.5°C can trigger much more severe climate change impacts and extreme weather events, and that every fraction of a degree of warming matters.

Even with current levels of global warming, devastating climate impacts are already occurring, such as more extreme heat waves, extreme precipitation events, and droughts; shrinking ice sheets, sea ice and glaciers, accelerating sea level rise and warming oceans.

“We live in unprecedented times, but we also have an unprecedented ability to monitor the weather and this can help guide our actions. In retrospect, this series of warmer months will be remembered as cold, but if we manage to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere in the very near future, we could return to these ‘cold’ temperatures by the end of the century,” according to Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

According to the WMO report on the state of the global climate in 2023, the global average near-surface temperature was 1.45 degrees above the pre-industrial reference value last year. It was by far the warmest year ever recorded, as a result of long-term climate warming combined with other factors, most notably the El Niño natural phenomenon episode.