La Jornada: The Earth has crossed the heat alarm threshold: UN agency

Geneva. The amount of heat accumulated by the Earth will reach a record level in 2025, with possible consequences for hundreds – and even thousands – of years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a UN agency, warned on Monday.

“The global climate is in an emergency situation. We are pushing planet Earth beyond its limits. All key climate indicators have exceeded the alarm threshold,” warned the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, on the occasion of the publication of the WMO’s annual report on the state of the climate.

For the first time, this report includes the Earth’s energy imbalance among the main climate indicators, which accounts for the speed with which energy enters and leaves the planet’s system. In a stable environment, the amount of incoming solar energy is approximately equal to the outgoing, but this balance is broken by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide), which cause continuous warming of the atmosphere and ocean, as well as melting of glaciers.

This imbalance was accentuated since the beginning of observation records in 1960; in particular, over the last 20 years, until reaching “a new record in 2025,” the WMO noted.

“Human activity is increasingly disrupting the natural balance and we will suffer the consequences for hundreds and thousands of years,” said WMO Secretary General Celeste Saulo.

In its report, the WMO confirms that the period between 2015 and 2025 marks the 11 warmest years ever recorded, and that 2025 ranks second or third, with a temperature approximately 1.43 °C higher than the average for the period 1850-1900.

The year 2024, which began under the influence of a powerful episode of The Child, It remains the warmest year ever observed, he emphasizes.