World still on track for disastrous 2.6C rise, study finds

The world is now anticipated to heat up by 2.6C above preindustrial times by the end of the century - the same temperature rise forecast last year.

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This level of heating easily breaches the thresholds set out in the Paris climate pact, which every country agreed to, and would set the world spiralling into a catastrophic new era of extreme weather and severe hardships.

A separate report found the fossil fuel emissions driving the climate crisis will rise by about 1% this year to hit a record high, but that the rate of rise has more than halved in recent years.

Over the past decade emissions from coal, oil and gas have risen by 0.8% a year, compared with 2.0% a year during the decade before. The accelerating rollout of renewable energy is now close to supplying the annual rise in the world's demand for energy, but it has yet to surpass it.

"A world at 2.6C means global disaster," said Bill Hare, the CEO of Climate Analytics. A world this hot would probably trigger "tipping points" that would cause the collapse of key Atlantic ocean circulation, the loss of coral reefs, the long-term deterioration of ice sheets and the conversion of the Amazon rainforest to a savannah. "That all means the end of agriculture in the UK and across Europe, drought and monsoon failure in Asia and Africa, lethal heat and humidity," said Hare. "This is not a good place to be."