“Humanity has just endured the eleven hottest years on record. When history repeats itself eleven times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act,” said United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres.
The Earth is “being pushed beyond its limits” as ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations continue to drive temperatures upwards, warm oceans, and melt ice, the UN warned on Monday.
A new World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report found that Earth’s climate is more out of balance than at any time in recorded history, with rapid, large-scale changes occurring within just a few decades, yet with implications for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
In its latest State of the Global Climate report, the UN agency confirmed that the past 11 years (2015–2025) were the hottest on record. “When history repeats itself eleven times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
It comes just weeks after another study provided the first concrete evidence that global warming is actually accelerating. In the paper, researchers said that the Earth has warmed around 0.35 °C in the decade to 2025, compared to less than 0.2 °C per decade on average between 1970 and 2015.
Rising global temperatures, a direct consequence of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, have led to increases in both the frequency and intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial times, including heatwaves, heavy rainfall, tropical cyclones, and droughts.
Extreme weather drives food insecurity, which in turn leads to social instability and the large-scale displacement of people globally, affecting communities’ ability to mitigate the impacts of climate change and adapt to them, the report said.
“On a day-to-day basis, our weather has become more extreme. In 2025, heatwaves, wildfires, drought, tropical cyclones, storms and flooding caused thousands of deaths, impacted millions of people, and caused billions in economic losses,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. A study by charity Christian Aid last December confirmed that record-breaking heatwaves, tropical cyclones, and rainfall made 2025 one of the costliest years for climate disasters, with the 10 costliest disasters alone racking up economic losses of $120 billion.
Guterres warned that the planet is “in a state of emergency”, with every key climate indicator “flashing red.”
Just like the atmosphere, oceans, which absorb approximately 90% of excess heat from greenhouse gases, are also warming at record speed. According to the WMO report, each of the past 9 years has set a new record for ocean heat content, with the warming rate over the past 2 decades (2005–2025) twice that observed over 1960–2005. It added that nearly 90% of the ocean experienced at least one heatwave last year.
The consequences of ocean warming cannot be overstated. Beyond directly affecting marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, and reducing the ocean’s ability to trap carbon dioxide, warm waters fuel tropical storms and accelerate sea-ice loss in the polar regions, raising sea levels.
In 2025, the ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland continued to lose significant mass, while Iceland and the Pacific coast of North America experienced “exceptional” glacier mass loss, the report said.