UN says 2026 will be one of the hottest years on record

This year is expected to be one of the four hottest on record, driven by the strong El Niño and continuing a warming trend that has lasted more than a decade, according to a UN report released this Monday (9).

Countries meet in Turkey, from today (9) to 20 November, for a new round of climate negotiations, and the “State of the Climate” report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) provides the most recent data available to guide their discussions.

Between January and September this year, the global average temperature was 1.47 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average and could rise even further due to the strong El Niño, according to the report.

The WMO study, which spans nine data sets, showed that each of the last 12 years, including 2026, has been among the 12 warmest since records began around 1850.

"All the indicators here point to the same conclusion. We are seeing that the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is manifesting itself in the ocean, in the atmosphere, in melting ice and rising sea levels," WMO Climate Information Chief John Kennedy told reporters in Geneva ahead of the conference.

The European Union's Copernicus climate service had already stated that it was virtually certain that 2026 would become the second calendar year, after 2024, to exceed the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels established in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The planet is accumulating more and more heat, according to the UN report, with ocean temperatures continuing to rise this year, surpassing historic records set in 2025.

Global average sea levels also hit a record high this year, as glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expands with warming.