The global average temperature is expected to rise to almost 2C above pre-industrial levels in the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization has forecast. Scientists expect a range of knock-on effects from such a climb to near the 2C mark, including a fall in crop yields and more than a third of the world’s population being exposed to extreme heat. This does not represent a breach of the 2015 Paris accord target to limit warming since pre-industrial times to well under 2C and preferably to 1.5C, as the threshold is typically measured over at least two decades. But a temporary breach of the 2C level could occur over the near term, as the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide behind global warming was at its highest level in 800,000 years, the WMO said. Annual temperatures between 2025 and 2029 would be between 1.2C and 1.9C higher than the 1850 to 1900 average, it said, with the five-year mean likely to exceed 1.5C. Adam Scaife of the Met Office Hadley Centre said the predictions by the UN agency, which gathers global, regional, and national data sets, were “shocking” because they showed that years in which the temperature rise exceeded 1.5C — which happened for the first time in 2024 — would now be close to “commonplace”. It is also the first time that scientists’ computer models had flagged the more imminent possibility of a 2C year. “That was effectively impossible just a few years ago,”Scaife added.

Full report : The World Meteorological Organization says global temperatures could break heat record in next five years.