The World Meteorological Organization has released its flagship State of the Global Climate 2025 report today 23rd March, 2026 World Meteorological Day, confirming that every single year between 2015 and 2025 ranks among the eleven hottest years since records began in 1850.
The 11 hottest years ever recorded were all between 2015 and 2025, the WMO confirmed in its annual report. Last year was the second or third hottest year on record, at about 1.43 degrees Celsius above the 1850 to 1900 pre-industrial average.
“The global climate is in a state of emergency. Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits. Every key climate indicator is flashing red,” said UN Secretary-General António 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 data behind that declaration paints a picture of a planet under sustained and accelerating stress. Ocean heat content reached another record high in 2025, extending a streak of annual records over the past nine years. The rate of ocean warming between 2005 and 2025 has more than doubled compared with the period from 1960 to 2005.
Arctic sea ice levels in 2025 were at or near record lows, while Antarctic sea ice ranked among the lowest ever recorded. Glaciers worldwide continued to lose mass, with significant losses reported in Iceland and along the Pacific coast of North America.
For the first time in the report’s history, the WMO included the planet’s energy imbalance, the rate at which energy enters and leaves the Earth system. Under a stable climate, incoming energy from the sun is about the same as the amount of outgoing energy.
The current imbalance confirms that Earth is trapping significantly more heat than it is releasing the fundamental driver of everything else the report documents.
Extreme weather events linked to rising temperatures caused widespread disruption in 2025, including heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, storms and flooding, resulting in thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in losses.
Looking ahead, the outlook offers little comfort. Forecasts indicate neutral conditions by the middle of 2026 with a possible El Niño developing before the end of the year. If so, elevated temperatures are likely again in 2027.
WMO deputy chief Ko Barrett described the overall picture as “dire,” saying there was “no denying” that the indicators are “not moving in a direction that provides for a lot of hope.”
Guterres connected the climate crisis directly to the current geopolitical moment finding an uncomfortable link between the two biggest stories of 2026. “In this age of war, climate stress is also exposing another truth: our addiction to fossil fuels is destabilising both the climate and global security,” he said
For Africa and Nigeria specifically the report’s findings carry immediate and practical consequences. Rising temperatures are driving desertification across the Sahel, intensifying flooding in coastal and riverine communities, threatening agricultural yields and accelerating the resource conflicts that fuel instability across the continent.
Nigeria’s farmers, fisherfolk and communities already living on the frontlines of climate change are experiencing in real time what today’s report is now confirming in data.
The report was released today under the 2026 World Meteorological Day theme “Observing Today, Protecting Tomorrow.”
