Climate News

2025 was the third-warmest year on record, and 2023–2025 averaged above 1.5C for the first time

The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service says 2025 was the third-hottest year on record, behind 2024 and 2023. According to Euronews, the global average temperature was 14.97C, which is 1.47C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial level. Copernicus says the 2023–2025 average was the first three-year period to exceed 1.5C, and that the past 11 years are the warmest 11 on record. Europe also had its third-warmest year.

Dawn, carrying an AFP report, added figures from the US non-profit Berkeley Earth: about 770 million people experienced record-warm annual conditions where they live, while no place logged a record-cold year. In its own release, Berkeley Earth said the size of the recent spike "suggests additional factors have amplified recent warming".

"The world is rapidly approaching the long-term temperature limit set by the Paris Agreement." — Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus, via Euronews

How each outlet framed it

• Euronews — the two main drivers: rising greenhouse gases and exceptionally high sea-surface temperatures, plus Europe's own figures.
• Dawn — the global picture from two monitors, with record-hot years in Central Asia, the Sahel and northern Europe.
• Berkeley Earth — the question of whether warming is accelerating.

What we don't know yet: how hot 2026 will be. Berkeley Earth expects it to be roughly similar to 2025, around the fourth-warmest year, while Copernicus says a developing El Niño could make it a record. Copernicus also warns the 1.5C limit could be reached by the end of this decade; a single year or three-year average above 1.5C is not the same as breaching the long-term Paris goal.