2025 was the third-hottest year ever recorded on Earth, data shows
Last year was the third warmest in modern history, according to Copernicus, the European Union’s climate change monitoring service.
The conclusion is no surprise: The last 11 years have been the hottest 11 years on record, according to Copernicus data.
In 2025, the global average temperature was about 1.47 degrees Celsius (2.65 Fahrenheit) higher than it was from 1850 to 1900 – the period scientists use as a reference point because it precedes the industrial era during which massive amounts of carbon pollution were released into the atmosphere.
“Annual surface air temperatures were above average across 91% of the planet,” Samantha Burgess, strategic climate manager at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs Copernicus, told a news conference. “The main reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, dominated by the burning of fossil fuels. »
World leaders committed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to trying to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But temperatures have approached or exceeded that mark for three years in a row, leaving that dream all but dead.
“Exceeding a three-year average of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels is a milestone that none of us wanted to see,” Mauro Facchini, head of Earth observation at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Defense Industry and Space, said at the press conference. “The news is not encouraging and the urgency for climate action has never been greater. »
U.S. agencies are expected to release their climate measurements for 2025 on Wednesday. NASA releases its report separately from that of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, since each uses different methods to calculate the global average annual temperature, which usually results in some variation in results.
However, the trajectory of all these measures is clear: the world is warming rapidly, dangerously, and perhaps faster than scientists once predicted.
Climate data in Europe is grim amid aggressive U.S. efforts to roll back regulations meant to combat climate change and move away from international collaboration to curb warming.
The Trump administration announced last week that it would withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, leaving the United States without a significant voice in global climate discussions. The administration also said the United States would no longer support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produces the world’s best reports on the pace of climate change and its effects.
Later this month, after a year-long waiting period, the United States will officially leave the Paris Agreement.
President Donald Trump has called climate change a “fraud” and his administration has taken steps to scuttle or downplay key climate reports, including the National Climate Assessment. The administration is working to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas pollution that causes global warming.
At the same time, he took steps to boost the coal industry and ordered that coal-fired power plants continue to operate. (Coal is the fuel that produces the highest level of greenhouse gas pollution.) The administration has also pushed to roll back many of the Biden administration’s climate initiatives, including subsidies for electric vehicles.
Climate pollution in the United States increased by about 2.4% in 2025, according to preliminary results from the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm that tracks U.S. emissions. This is not necessarily the result of Trump’s policies, however, since many of them are only just beginning to have an effect. Rhodium researchers said relatively high natural gas prices, the growth of energy-intensive data centers and a cooler winter in the United States were behind the increase.
Rhodium analysts still predict that the United States will reduce emissions in the future, largely because renewable energy sources are becoming cheaper in many places than fossil fuels. But the group now expects a smaller drop in emissions than before Trump came to power.
Heat trapped by greenhouse gases makes weather conditions more extreme, increasing the risk of intense rains, heat waves and flooding.
Last year was the third costliest year for major weather and climate disasters, according to an analysis released last week by the nonprofit Climate Central. In 2025, 23 weather and climate events caused damage exceeding $1 billion, the report said, causing a total of 276 deaths and $115 billion in damage.
Although greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of rising global temperatures, natural variability may play a role. The La Niña phenomenon, in which colder-than-average waters dominate in the central Pacific, tends to dampen global temperatures, while El Niño tends to increase them.
A La Niña has set in in late 2025, but NOAA scientists expect a return to neutral conditions early this year.
