(CN) - The planet's warming trend has accelerated so quickly that Earth could exceed the 2015 Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree-Celsius threshold more than a decade earlier than expected, according to a Copernicus report showing 2025 was the third-hottest year on record globally.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union's climate monitor, published its report Wednesday, coordinating the release with other climate agencies, including NASA and the World Meteorological Organization. The findings of the different agencies were very similar.
Using several methods, Copernicus said scientists estimate long-term global warming has now reached about 1.4 C (2.52 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels but the planet will reach 1.5 C (2.7 F) by the end of the decade.
With the signing of the Paris Agreement, world leaders pledged to contain warming to under 1.5 C by reducing carbon emissions and boosting renewable energy. But that goal now seems unattainable as carbon emissions continue to rise.
Copernicus said for the first time the planet's average temperature for the last three years exceeded 1.5 C over pre-industrial times. The agency reported the past 11 years were the warmest on record.
The agency said last year was only marginally cooler than 2023 - a difference of just 0.01 C (0.018 F) - and only 0.13 C (0.23 F) cooler than 2024 - the warmest year on record, when the average temperature hit 1.6 C (2.88 F) above pre-industrial levels. Last year, the average global surface air temperature was measured at 1.47 C (2.64 F) above pre-industrial levels.
Carlo Buontempo, the Copernicus director, said this was "further evidence of the unmistakable trend towards a hotter climate."
"The world is rapidly approaching the long-term temperature limit set by the Paris agreement," he said in a statement. "We are bound to pass it; the choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems."
Giulio Betti, a climate scientist with Italy's National Research Council, said by telephone, "The rate of warming is faster than predicted." He was not involved in the Copernicus report.
Betti said this warming trend suggests the planet has probably reached a dangerous tipping point. He pointed to widespread coral reef decline caused by unprecedented marine heat waves as evidence.
"When the Earth's system and the energy balance of the Earth is based on a particular equilibrium, and when this is broken, the system tries to reach a new state - and the jump between the first state and the second state is a tipping point," he said.
"It's very difficult to demonstrate it, but it could be the main cause of this acceleration" in global temperatures, he said.
The recent rise in temperature also has been linked to other factors, including the emergence of an El Nino weather cycle in early 2023 and cleaner shipping fuel regulations that went into effect in 2020. The new rules cut down on sulfur dioxide particles, which reflect solar radiation and slightly offset warming.
Still, scientists say the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gasses emitted by human activities is the main factor behind record-breaking temperatures.
Betti said the warming trend suggests the planet is on a path toward becoming about 2.7 C (4.86 F) warmer than pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.
That level of warming is considered a "middle-of-the-road" scenario by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body that issues reports on climate change.
Betti said this year may prove to be another scorcher, and possibly become the hottest yet because another El Nino cycle could emerge this summer. El Ninos are associated with warmer and more unruly weather.
The Copernicus report also highlighted warming trends in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Last year, Antarctica saw its warmest annual temperature on record. It was the second warmest ever measured in the Arctic region.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Source: Courthouse News Service
