Newly released datasets from leading climate agencies show that 2025 ranks among the three hottest years ever recorded, while atmospheric greenhouse gases, ocean heat and sea levels all reached new highs. Together, the numbers paint a sobering picture: efforts to rein in fossil fuel use have not kept pace with the scale of the challenge.
A decade on, the world is drifting further from its climate goals.
Emissions in Reality
Measurements from the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Atmosphere Watch network show concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide climbing to record levels, the primary driver behind the sharp temperature rise observed from 2023 to 2025.
According to the Global Carbon Budget, global fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions are projected to reach 38.1 billion tonnes in 2025, the highest level ever recorded. Coal, oil and gas use continue to rise, offsetting gains from renewable energy deployment.
The report, compiled by more than 130 scientists worldwide, estimates emissions will grow by 1.1% in 2026, pushing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations to roughly 52% above pre-industrial levels.
Scientists warn the remaining carbon budget is vanishingly small. To have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, humanity can emit only about 170 billion tonnes more CO₂, roughly four years of emissions at current rates.
Regionally, trends diverge. Emissions are still rising in China, India, the United States and the European Union, while Japan has recorded a modest decline.
A Decade of Acceleration in Temperatures
Data from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies show Earth’s surface temperature in 2025 averaged 1.19°C above the 1951–1980 baseline, effectively tying with 2023 as the warmest year on record.
When measured against the pre-industrial era, the picture is starker. The WMO’s consolidated dataset places 2025 at 1.44°C above pre-industrial levels, ranking it among the three hottest years in the 176-year instrumental record.
Independent analyses from Berkeley Earth confirm the trend: warming has accelerated notably since the mid-2010s, coinciding with a surge in cumulative emissions.
Arctic: Sea Ice at Historic Lows
The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the global average, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NOAA’s 2025 Arctic Report Card found that the period from October 2024 to September 2025 was the warmest in the region since records began in 1900. In March 2025, Arctic sea-ice extent reached its lowest winter maximum ever recorded, covering just 14.47 million square kilometres, data from the U.S. National Ice Center show.
Scientists warn that shrinking sea ice not only accelerates warming, by reducing the Earth’s reflectivity, but also disrupts weather patterns far beyond the polar regions.
Oceans: Absorbing the Heat, Raising the Seas
The oceans, which absorb more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases, set new records in 2025. NOAA and Berkeley Earth report that upper-ocean heat content reached its highest level ever measured.
As oceans warm, they expand. Combined with melting glaciers and ice sheets, this has pushed global sea levels steadily higher. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a rise of 0.20 to 0.29 metres by 2050, compared with the 1995–2014 average, a change that threatens coastal cities, ports and low-lying nations.
A Decade After Paris
When the Paris Agreement was adopted, governments pledged to keep warming “well below” 2°C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. A decade later, the data show the world edging perilously close to that lower threshold, without a credible pathway to stop there.
The science does not argue that Paris failed; it shows that implementation has lagged ambition. What the next decade delivers will depend less on new pledges than on whether the existing ones finally translate into structural change.
For now, the climate system is delivering its verdict in numbers, and those numbers are moving faster than diplomacy.
Ten Years After Paris Climate Pact, Warming Curve Steepens Alarmingly added by Sridhar P on
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