20 March 2026
Dr Akshay Deoras, senior research scientist at the University of Reading's Department of Meteorology, comments on the State of the Global Climate 2025 report, embargoed to Monday, 23 March.
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"The report paints a deeply worrying picture of the state of our climate. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and 2025 came very close behind, at around 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels. That happened even without the same strong El Niño that pushed up temperatures in 2023–2024. It shows that the background level of human-driven warming is now so high that our planet is not getting a chance to cool down, and the new energy imbalance indicator mentioned in the report is at its highest level since reliable observations began in the 1960s.
"Greenhouse gases are at record or near record levels and still rising. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached about 424 parts per million in 2024, the highest level in millions of years and the biggest annual jump since modern measurements began. Methane and nitrous oxide are also at record highs. Together they are trapping more and more heat, which is why the planet’s energy imbalance is growing and why most of this extra heat is being absorbed by the oceans, pushing ocean heat content, sea level, and decline in sea ice level to new record values.
"2024 was the hottest year on record, partly because of the strong El Niño that developed in 2023. El Niño naturally releases a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, and when that sits on top of very high greenhouse gas levels it can push global temperatures to new records. There is a good chance we will see El Niño conditions develop again later this year. Thus, it could bring another spike in global temperatures in 2026–2027 on top of the already high baseline.
"In simple terms, our planet is carrying a heavy burden of extra heat because of our emissions, and natural events like El Niño are now acting on top of that burden rather than giving us any breathing space. The result is that each year we are living with higher risks of extreme heat, heavy rainfall, drought, wildfires and rising seas. The science is clear that cutting greenhouse gas emissions quickly is the only way to ease this pressure and give the climate system a chance to stabilise."
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