Next five years could be the hottest ever, UN warns

Kathmandu: The next five years could be the hottest ever period globally, the United Nations warned Wednesday as greenhouse gases and El Nino combine to send temperatures soaring.

Global temperatures are soon set to exceed the more ambitious target set out in the Paris climate accords, with a two-thirds chance that one of the next five years will do so, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

The hottest eight years ever recorded were all between 2015 and 2022, but temperatures are forecast to increase further as climate change accelerates.

‘There is a 98-percent likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record,’ the WMO said.

The 2015 Paris agreement saw countries agree to cap global warming at well below two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 and, 1.5 Celsius if possible.

The global mean temperature in 2022 was 1.15C above the 1850-1900 average. The WMO said there was a 66 percent chance that annual global surface temperatures will exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the years 2023-2027, with a range of 1.1C to 1.8C forecasted for each of those five years.

Global land and sea mean near-surface temperatures have increased since the 1960s. The chances of temperatures temporarily exceeding 1.5C above the 1850-1990 average have risen steadily since 2015, a year when they were considered close to zero.