Author: The Energy Mix staff

NASA

The Earth has reached a record “energy imbalance”, with the atmosphere taking on far more heat than it can release and ocean warming reaching new heights, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned last week, in a State of the Global Climate report that showed greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise through 2025.

“Earth’s energy imbalance, the gap between heat absorbed and heat released, is the highest on record,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in response to the report. “Our planet is trapping heat faster than it can shed it,” and the consequences “are written into the daily lives of families struggling as droughts and storms drive up food prices, in workers pushed to the brink by extreme heat, in farmers watching crops wither, and in communities and homes swept away by floods.”

The WMO reported that:

• Atmospheric concentrations of the “big three” climate pollutants—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—all increased last year. Carbon dioxide was up by 152% over pre-industrial levels, methane by 266%, and nitrous oxide by 125%.

• The Earth was about 1.43°C warmer last year than the pre-industrial average, between 1850 and 1900.

• 2025 was the second- or third-warmest year on record, and the 11 years between 2015 and 2025 were the 11 warmest.

• Northern Canada, Greenland, western Europe, Fennoscandia (the Scandinavian and Kola peninsulas), the Mediterranean, and parts of Asia were warming faster than the global average.

• Both the Arctic and the Antarctic saw below-average sea ice cover throughout the year. Preliminary data showed major glacier loss, as well, leading to “significant and direct impacts on water resources and sustainable development.”

• Climate change led to unusually heavy precipitation in some regions and severe drought in others.

• The world’s oceans absorbed 90% of the extra heat trapped by atmospheric climate pollution and reached record warming again last year, leading to sea level rise, coral bleaching, and increased acidity that threatens ocean ecosystems, species, and food chains. Ocean acidity has now reached a level not seen in the last 26,000 years, the WMO said.

• The rate of sea level rise increased from 2.65 to 4.75 millimetres per year between 1993-2011 and 2012-2025. That may not sound like a lot, but “most of the world’s megacities are in coastal areas, with millions of people living in low-elevation coastal zones,” the WMO explained. So “even just a few millimetres of rise can have a big impact on coastal flooding and erosion, putting populations at increased risk from storms and floods, salt-water intrusion.”

For the first time, the WMO’s annual climate report card introduced the Earth’s energy imbalance as a new indicator. That imbalance “has been growing since the 1960s, reaching a record high in 2025,” the agency stated. “As the trapped energy accumulates, it raises temperatures on land and in the ocean and leads to melting glaciers and ice sheets.”

The report stresses the value of early warning systems in giving communities time to prepare for severe weather, but noted that those services aren’t available to one-third of the global population—mostly in least-developed countries and small island states. Under instructions from Guterres, the WMO and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction are now on a mission to deliver early warning systems for all in the next five years.

But adapting to climate impacts is just one part of the picture, the WMO stressed.

“Without immediate and deep greenhouse gases emissions reductions across all sectors and regions, it will be impossible to keep warming below 1.5°C,” the agency stated. The report cited the shift to renewable energy and increases in climate finance as positive steps, but stressed the need to pick up the pace.

in Arctic & Antarctica, Carbon Levels & Measurement, Cities & Communities, Climate Equity & Justice, Drought & Wildfires, Food & Agriculture, Health & Safety, Heat & Temperature, Ice Loss & Sea Level Rise, International Agencies & Studies, Methane, Oceans, Severe Storms & Flooding