2026 will be one of the hottest years ever recorded, according to international projections

The year 2026 could be among the hottest in history, according to projections from the Met Office, the UK’s meteorological agency, which warned about the continued sustained increase in global temperature and the growing challenges this poses for the fight against climate change. According to the report, the global average temperature in 2026 would be around 1.46 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900), with an estimated range of between 1.34 °C and 1.58 °C. These figures place next year just below the historical record of 1.55 °C recorded in 2024, considered so far the warmest ever documented. Met Office experts pointed out that, if these forecasts are met, 2026 would be the fourth consecutive year with temperatures exceeding 1.4 °C, a threshold that had not been surpassed before the recent thermal rebound. Adam Scaife, head of the global forecasting team, warned that this trend confirms how quickly the planet is approaching the 1.5 °C limit established as a critical reference in the Paris Agreement. The United Nations Organization (UN) has reiterated that global warming is closely linked to human activity, especially to the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, generated by the use of fossil fuels in transportation, industry, and energy generation.

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The scenario projected for 2026 once again puts pressure on the international commitments made in the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, whose objective is to limit the increase in the global average temperature to less than 2 °C, with the additional effort of not exceeding 1.5 °C. The treaty obliges the signatory countries to review their emission reduction plans every five years and to strengthen adaptation strategies to face climate impacts. The scientific community warns that exceeding the 1.5 °C threshold, even temporarily, significantly increases the risk of extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity, impacts on food security, and greater difficulties for adaptation. Each additional fraction of a degree, experts emphasize, aggravates the impacts and reduces the margin for maneuver to avoid irreversible damage. In that context, international organizations insist on the urgency of accelerating climate actions, drastically reducing emissions, and moving towards net-zero emissions economies, if it is intended to prevent the coming years from consolidating a trend of extreme heat with profound consequences for the planet and future generations.