2025 is expected to be one of the three warmest years on record on the planet, the British Met Office announced today, following a record year in 2024, and for the first time it is expected to break the symbolic barrier of 1 ,5°C of global warming.

In its outlook report for next year, the agency estimates that 2025 is “likely to be one of the three warmest years in terms of global average temperature, just behind 2024 and 2023.”

The temperature rise over the next year should be between 1.29°C and 1.53°C compared to the pre-industrial period (1850-1900), according to the UK agency.

The end of the natural El Niño phenomenon, which, combined with human-caused global warming, caused temperatures to rise in 2023-2024, should normally lead to a decrease in temperatures.

But “it is interesting to note that high global temperatures are predicted for 2025 despite the fact that (the) tropical Pacific is heading towards a La Niña phase, a phenomenon that results in slightly cooler conditions,” pointed out Professor Adam Scaife of service.

The UK agency also says 2024 is expected to be the warmest year on record globally, surpassing 2023 and “almost certainly for the first time exceeding 1.5°C above ‘pre-industrial’ levels”.

This assessment is identical to the conclusions of the European Observatory Copernicus which were published on Monday.

This symbolic barrier corresponds to the most ambitious limit of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to hold global temperature rise well below 2°C and continue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

According to the latest UN estimates, the world is not at all on track to reduce carbon pollution and avoid a very strong worsening of the droughts, heat waves or torrential rains that have already been seen and that have huge costs no only financial but also in human lives.