UN weather agency says 2015-’25 was the hottest decade on record

The years between 2015 and 2025 have been the hottest since the World Meteorological Organization began recording data, the United Nation’s weather agency said on Monday.

The agency’s annual State of the Global Climate report added that 2025 was the second or third hottest year on record, at about 1.43 degrees ​Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

The report added that 2024 was the hottest year on record. Temperatures above 1.55 degree Celsius more than the 1850 to 1990 average were recorded that year.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries have committed to a long-term goal of trying to limit average temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The report highlighted that the Earth’s climate is “more out of balance than at any point in observed history” and that the consequences will be seen for “hundreds – and potentially thousands – of years”.

The world’s oceans have broken heat content records for nine consecutive years, the report said, while adding that they have been absorbing the equivalent of about 18 times the annual human energy annually, for the past 20 years.

In 2025, ocean heat content, up to a depth of 2,000 metres, reached the highest level since the start of records in 1960, the report highlighted.

“Every key climate indicator is flashing red,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “Humanity has just endured the 11 hottest years on record. When history repeats itself 11 times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.”

The report also underlined climate change’s growing health toll by amplifying risks of vector and water-borne diseases. It noted that dengue fever is the world’s fastest-growing mosquito-borne disease.

Meanwhile, 1.2 billion workers, which accounts for over a third of the global workforce, are exposed to dangerous workplace heat each year, the report said.