Earth's average temp for 2025-29 to exceed 1.5° C limit: WMO

THERE is a 70 per cent chance that the average global temperature for the 2025-2029 period will exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a new report published by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on Wednesday.

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It also said that there is an 80 per cent chance that at least one of the next five years will exceed 2024 as the warmest on record.

Besides being the hottest on record, 2024 was the first calendar year with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 baseline, the period before human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, began significantly impacting the climate.

The 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold is a target that countries agreed to at the Paris climate conference in 2015 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.