According to the European Climate Monitoring Service Copernicus (C3S), the year 2025 has become one of the three warmest years in the history of meteorological observations.
The Deputy Director of C3S, Samantha Burgess, presented a new report titled "Global Climate Indicators" on January 14, noting that "2025 was only slightly cooler than 2023, while 2024 remains the warmest year on record."
According to her, the past year marked new records in climate change: the average temperature in 2025 was 0.01 degrees Celsius lower than in 2023 and 0.13 degrees lower than in 2024.
The average temperature in 2023-2025 was 1.5 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial era
Research shows that from 2023 to 2025, the average global temperature was more than 1.5 degrees higher than the levels of the pre-industrial era. This is the first time such an increase has been recorded over a three-year period, the authors of the report emphasize.
If the current pace of climate change continues, the allowable limit of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, established by the Paris Agreement of 2015, could be exceeded as early as the end of this decade—ten years earlier than expected.
The Earth continues to warm
Although 2025 was not warmer than the previous year, experts emphasize that in the long term, global temperatures continue to rise. This process will continue even with a sharp reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as these substances remain in the atmosphere for a long time. Laurence Ruill, an atmospheric service specialist at Copernicus, explained that for CO2, we are talking about centuries.
In some regions, temperatures in 2025 were below average, but this is a normal phenomenon for climate fluctuations. Burgess noted: "A cold region does not mean that climate change does not exist. It is important to consider the global context."
The Director of Copernicus, Carlo Buontempo, emphasized that the overall trend of ongoing global warming is evident. "The world is rapidly approaching the long-term temperature limit agreed upon in the Paris Agreement," he warned. "We will inevitably exceed it. We need to determine how best to cope with this inevitable exceedance and its consequences for society and ecosystems."
