BRUSSELS: The planet logged its third hottest year on record in 2025, extending a run of unprecedented heat, with no relief expected in 2026, US researchers and EU climate monitors said on Wednesday. The last 11 years have now been the warmest ever recorded, with 2024 topping the podium and 2023 in second place, according to the EU&#39;s Copernicus Climate Change Service and Berkeley Earth, a California-based non-profit research organization. For the first time, global temperatures exceeded 1.5&deg;C relative to pre-industrial times on average over the last three years, Copernicus said in its annual report. &quot;The warming spike observed from 2023-2025 has been extreme, and suggests an acceleration in the rate of the Earth&#39;s warming,&quot; Berkeley Earth said in a separate report. The landmark 2015 Paris Agreement commits the world to limiting warming to well below 2&deg;C and pursuing efforts to hold it at 1.5&deg;C; a long-term target scientists say would help avoid the worst consequences of climate change. UN chief Antonio Guterres warned in October that breaching 1.5&deg;C was &quot;inevitable,&quot; but the world could limit this period of overshoot by cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. Copernicus said the 1.5&deg;C limit &quot;could be reached by the end of this decade &mdash; over a decade earlier than predicted.&quot; But efforts to contain global warming were dealt another setback last week when President Donald Trump said he would pull the United States, the world&#39;s second-biggest polluter after China, out of the bedrock UN climate treaty. Temperatures were 1.47&deg;C above pre-industrial times in 2025&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;just a fraction cooler than in 2023&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;following 1.6&deg;C in 2024, according to the EU climate monitor. Some 770 million people experienced record-warm annual conditions where they live, while no record-cold annual average was logged anywhere, according to Berkeley Earth. The Antarctic experienced its warmest year on record, while it was the second hottest in the Arctic, Copernicus said. An AFP analysis of Copernicus data last month found that Central Asia, the Sahel region, and northern Europe experienced their hottest year on record in 2025. 2026: Fourth-warmest?&nbsp;Berkeley and Copernicus both warned that 2026 would not break the trend. If the warming El Ni&ntilde;o weather phenomenon appears this year, &quot;this could make 2026 another record-breaking year,&quot; Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP. &quot;Temperatures are going up. So we are bound to see new records. Whether it will be 2026, 2027, or 2028 doesn&#39;t matter too much. The direction of travel is very, very clear,&quot; Buontempo said. Berkeley Earth said it expected this year to be similar to 2025, &quot;with the most likely outcome being approximately the fourth-warmest year since 1850.&quot; Emissions fight&nbsp;The reports come as efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of climate change, are stalling in developed countries. Emissions rose in the United States last year, snapping a two-year streak of declines, as bitter winters and the AI boom fuelled demand for energy, the Rhodium Group think tank said Tuesday. The pace of greenhouse gas emissions reductions slowed in Germany and France. &quot;While greenhouse gas emissions remain the dominant driver of global warming, the magnitude of this recent spike suggests additional factors have amplified recent warming beyond what we would expect from greenhouse gases and natural variability alone,&quot; said Berkeley Earth chief scientist Robert Rohde. The organization said international rules cutting sulfur in ship fuel since 2020 may have actually added to warming by reducing sulfur dioxide emissions, which form aerosols that reflect sunlight away from Earth.

A dog looks on as children fill up a jerrycan from a water puddle left by recent heavy flooding in the Hays region south of Yemen's Hodeidah province on August 28, 2024.(AFP)

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 Scientists warn that a 1.5°C warming may be reached this decade, with 2026 likely remaining extremely warm as emissions cuts stall and El Nino risks persist globally.

2025 was third hottest year on record: EU, US experts

SYDNEY: Australian firefighters warned people on Monday to prepare for more bushfires in a &quot;high-risk&quot; summer, after blazes killed one person and incinerated more than 350 buildings in the southeast. Weather conditions have eased since strong winds and temperatures topping 40 &deg;C fueled dozens of wildfires in southeastern Australia&#39;s Victoria, which declared a state of disaster on Saturday. But officials said 12 major fires were still burning across the state. Country Fire Authority chief officer Jason Heffernan said another &quot;heating event&quot; was expected towards the end of January, though its intensity was uncertain. &quot;We are early in the high-risk weather season,&quot; Heffernan told a news conference. &quot;There&#39;s been a lot of fire in the landscape. Much work will be done between now and then to contain these fires,&quot; he said. &quot;Whilst we join with the community in the rebuilding and the relief and recovery of the fires that have been, we need to turn our minds to the fires that could be as the season continues.&quot; More than 350 structures, including over 65 homes, have been lost so far in the state, officials said, with the number likely to rise as fire damage is assessed. One person died in a fire near the town of Longwood, about two hours&#39; drive north of the state capital Melbourne, police say. Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch said weather conditions had become more favourable for firefighters. &quot;But that doesn&#39;t mean that the risk is over,&quot; he said. &quot;Whilst the conditions are easing in some parts of the state, even the slightest of winds are still causing those fires to move around.&quot; High temperatures and dry winds combined last week to form some of the most dangerous bushfire conditions since the &quot;Black Summer&quot; blazes. The Black Summer bushfires raged across Australia&#39;s eastern seaboard from late 2019 to early 2020, razing millions of hectares, destroying thousands of homes, and blanketing cities in noxious smoke. Australia&#39;s climate has warmed by an average of 1.51 &deg;C since 1910, researchers have found, fuelling increasingly frequent extreme weather patterns over both land and sea.

This handout photo from the CFA Wandong Fire Brigade, posted on their Facebook page, taken on January 7, 2026, and released on January 8, shows a bushfire burning near the town of Longwood, northern Victoria. (AFP)

A high-risk summer is expected, as 12 major blazes burn in Victoria, where fires have killed one person, destroyed over 350 buildings, and followed extreme heat and strong winds last week.

Articles tagged with "Weather"

2025 was third hottest year on record: EU, US experts

Australian firefighters warn of 'high-risk' bushfire season