TIMELINE: Extreme heat, drought in 2025 as the year set to be second or third-hottest on record

Global temperatures in 2025 are on track to be the second or third highest ever recorded, continuing a decade-long warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

Reuters

14 January 2026 at 08:35:51

Chad Koscielny and Kendall McFaull of Corteva Agriscience examine some of their company’s new varieties of canola outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, July 15, 2025.

Ed White/Reuters

This year is set to be the world's second or third-warmest on record, potentially surpassed only by 2024'S record-breaking heat, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Tuesday (December 9).

The data is the latest from C3S following last month's COP30 climate summit, where governments failed to agree to substantial new measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reflecting strained geopolitics as the U.S. rolls back its efforts, and some countries seek to weaken CO2-cutting measures.

This year will also likely round out the first three-year period in which the average global temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale, C3S said in a monthly bulletin.

While natural weather patterns mean temperatures fluctuate year to year, scientists have documented a clear warming trend in global temperatures over time, and confirmed that the main cause of this warming is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

The last 10 years have been the 10 warmest years since records began, the World Meteorological Organization said earlier this year.

Production: Natasa Bansagi/Reuters