World could hit 1.5C warming threshold in next five years, experts warn: ‘Yet another wake-up call’

Rapidly rising temperatures mean greater ice melt, higher sea levels, more heatwaves and extreme weather, and greater impacts on food security, reports Harry Cockburn

‘World needs to fast-track commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions,’ WMO secretary general says (Getty)

Alarming new climate predictions from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) suggest there is a rapidly increasing likelihood the world’s annual average temperature could reach 1.5C above pre-industrial levels within just the next five years.

Hitting this average temperature would mean our planet was already reaching the lower limits which countries pledged to avoid under the Paris climate agreement just six years ago.

The historic agreement legally bound signatory countries to act to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to “well below 2C” and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C.

Overall, the chance of temporarily reaching 1.5C has roughly doubled compared to last year’s predictions, the WMO said.

This means there is now about a 40 per cent chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5C in at least one of the next five years, “and these odds are increasing with time”, the organisation said.

The WMO said there is a 90 per cent likelihood of at least one year between 2021-2025 becoming the warmest on record, which would dislodge 2016 from the top ranking, based on assessment by the UK’s Met Office, which is the WMO’s lead centre for such predictions.

“These are more than just statistics,” Professor Petteri Taalas, the WMO’s secretary-general, said.

“Increasing temperatures mean more melting ice, higher sea levels, more heatwaves and other extreme weather, and greater impacts on food security, health, the environment and sustainable development.

“This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – that we are getting measurably and inexorably closer to the lower target of the Paris agreement on climate change. It is yet another wakeup call that the world needs to fast-track commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.”

In 2020 – one of the three warmest years on record – the global average temperature was 1.2C above the pre-industrial baseline, according to WMO’s analysis released earlier this year.

That report highlighted the acceleration in climate change indicators such as rising sea levels, melting sea ice, and extreme weather, as well as worsening impacts on socio-economic development.

The latest updates confirm that trend, the organisation said. In the coming five years, the annual mean global temperature is likely to be at least 1C warmer – within the range 0.9C-1.8C – than pre-industrial levels.

Professor Adam Scaife, the head of seasonal to decadal prediction at the Met Office, said: “Assessing the increase in global temperature in the context of climate change refers to the long-term global average temperature, not to the averages for individual years or months.

“Nevertheless, a temporary exceedance of the 1.5 degree level may already be seen in the next few years.”

Ahead of the Cop 26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, which the WMO described as “make-or-break”, the organisation warned that many countries’ existing national commitments to cut emissions, known as “nationally determined contributions” or NDCs, “currently fall far short of what is needed to achieve this target”.

Responding to the report, Richard Black, senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said: “This report makes an unarguable case that governments and businesses should urgently reduce emissions in the next few years, to keep the door to the Paris Agreement 1.5C target open.

“Having individual years more than 1.5C above the historical average wouldn’t mean the Paris target is breached, but this is an unmistakable warning sign that the door will close if governments make the wrong choices.”

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, warned a warming planet would result in increasingly extreme weather in the tropics.

He said, “More than 93 per cent of the additional heat from global warming is absorbed by the oceans. Among the oceans, some regions are warming quite rapidly. The long-term surface warming recorded in the western Indian Ocean region, for example, is in the range of 1.2-1.4C.

“This has a huge impact on the monsoon and severe weather events. Warmer ocean conditions are also resulting in the rapid intensification of cyclones. The recent cyclone Tauktae intensified from a weak cyclone to an extremely severe cyclone in a short time.”

Gail Whiteman, professor of sustainability at the University of Exeter’s Business School, said: “The Arctic is warming nearly three times faster than the globe as a whole, which is exacerbating sea-level rise, and worsening global heating as well as extreme weather events, from wildfires in California, Australia and Siberia to extreme snowfalls in North America, Europe and Japan.

“Arctic warming is already creating environmental, health and economic risks for citizens, companies and countries around the world.”