The world has recorded its hottest May on record, completing 12 consecutive months of record-breaking global temperatures. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the average temperature last month was 1.52C above the pre-industrial average.
The C3S also reported that the average global temperature for the 12-month period to the end of May was 1.63C above pre-industrial levels, making it the warmest such period since records began in 1940. Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S, said the streak was "shocking but not surprising", adding that while the sequence of record-breaking months would eventually be interrupted, the overall trend of climate change remained unchanged.
This 12-month average does not mean the world has yet surpassed the 1.5C warming threshold, which refers to a long-term average over decades. However, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has predicted an 80 per cent chance that global temperatures will exceed the 1.5C target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement within the next five years. The WMO said each year from 2024 to 2028 is expected to be between 1.1C and 1.9C hotter than the pre-industrial era.
Responding to the findings, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned that the world was heading in the wrong direction. "We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell," he said, urging a 30 per cent cut in global fossil fuel production and use by 2030. He also called for countries to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies, describing them as "the godfathers of climate chaos".
The announcement comes amid severe heatwaves from Asia to the Americas, with more than 200 deaths in India and at least 61 in Mexico. In April, record-breaking heat in dozens of Asian countries prompted extreme rainfall, floods and landslides that killed thousands. Studies have shown that such extreme events have been made worse by the climate crisis driven by carbon pollution.
Despite the grim outlook, Buontempo stressed the importance of monitoring. "We are living in unprecedented times, but we also have unprecedented skill in monitoring the climate," he said, adding that if greenhouse gas concentrations are stabilised soon, the recent record temperatures could eventually be viewed as comparatively cold by the end of the century.
