Because humanity burned too much coal, oil and gas, cleared forests and drained moors, 2025 was the third hottest year on record. This is reported by the European Earth observation service Copernicus and the World Weather Organization (WMO). The average temperature was therefore 1.47 degrees higher than before industrialization.
According to Copernicus, on average, the past “exceptionally warm” three years are even above the 1.5 degree limit agreed in the Paris Agreement due to the extremely hot year of 2024. In addition to global warming, the year was marked by the natural weather phenomenon El Niño, which is driving up global average temperatures, while 2025 was a so-called La Niña year, in which temperatures are slightly lower.
“The hope was that 2024 was an outlier, but 2025 was not as much cooler as hoped,” climate researcher Niklas Höhne from the New Climate Institute and the Dutch University of Wageningen told taz.
Copernicus also warns that the 30-year average limit of 1.5 degrees could be reached as early as the end of the 2020s, 10 years earlier than climate models had predicted in 2015. “It remains important that temperatures rise above 1.5 degrees as little as possible and for as short a time as possible,” said climate researcher Höhne. “We have to now as quickly as possible get out of coal and gas.”
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Trump administration endangers climate research
Copernicus data is based on eight data sets made up of billions of observations from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations. US institutes such as the NASA space agency are also involved. whose climate research the Trump administration wants to restrict. For example, she threatened to close the NCAR research center.
“We are lucky that there are redundancies in the system,” said climate researcher Höhne. “The structures in the EU and the USA are greatly duplicated.” This is good because it allows us to check each other’s observations. “But now it’s even more important.” Climate research institutes in the EU therefore need to be better equipped. “Funds for climate protection and research are also being cut in the EU,” said Höhne. “If we cannot observe climate change, we cannot act adequately, that is dangerous.”