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Climate experts have warned the 1.5C limit to human-caused global warming is ‘now dead in the water’
EU scientists have revealed 2025 was globally the third warmest year on record, warning human activity is driving the ‘unmistakable trend’ towards a hotter climate. New findings from a major global temperature dataset shows last year was the third year in a row with temperatures more than 1.4C above pre-industrial levels.
The 1.5C threshold is a target established in the Paris Agreement in 2015 where 195 parties pledged to tackle climate change. In a world within the 1.5C threshold, experts say that many of the deadliest effects of climate change – extreme heat, food scarcity, and insect-borne diseases – are reduced.
Now, scientists around the world, including at the UK’s Met Office, University of East Anglia, and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, have released their data for 2025. Last year was 1.41C above the baseline of 19th century temperatures, behind 2024’s record heat, and 2023, according to the HadCRUT5 temperature series.
However, Europe’s Copernicus Era5 analysis put temperatures at 1.47C above pre-industrial levels. The HadCRUT5 dataset puts the average temperature over the past three years at 1.47C above 1850 to 1900, while the Copernicus monitoring found they averaged more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Professor Tim Osborn, Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, said: “Our global temperature observations show that the world is continuing to warm in line with predictions made by climate scientists worldwide.
“A natural climate variation in the Pacific Ocean, known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, temporarily added about 0.1C to the global temperature in 2023 and 2024, contributing to the abrupt onset of the recent temperature surge. This natural influence weakened by 2025 and therefore the global temperature we observed in 2025 provides a clearer picture of the underlying warming.
“Sharp and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would slow, and eventually stop, further human-caused changes in the world’s climate.”
Scientists confirmed the primary driver of global warming is human activity, mostly burning fossil fuels. Climate scientist Colin Morice of the Met Office said: “The long-term increase in global annual average temperature is driven by the human-induced rise in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
“Fluctuations in the year-to-year temperature largely result from natural variation in the climate system.”
In light of the data, scientists have now warned that Planet Earth is ‘rapidly approaching’ and likely to pass the 1.5C limit set by the Paris agreement.
Prof Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at UCL, said: “These are grim but far from unexpected tidings. To all intents and purposes, the 1.5C limit is now dead in the water. Whichever way you look at it, dangerous climate breakdown has arrived, but with little sign that the world is prepared, or even paying serious attention.
“If we are to stop dangerous becoming catastrophic, then we need to fight even more to stop every tonne of carbon being emitted, and prevent every fraction of a degree rise in the global temperature. Failure to do this will inevitably consign our children and their children – and countless generations down the line – to a hothouse hell”.
The scientists from Copernicus also agreed the past 11 years were the warmest on record. Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said: “The fact that the last 11 years were the warmest on record provides 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. 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.”
