There is a 70% chance that the 2025-2029 period will be more than 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial times, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) forecasters predicted in a report on Wednesday.
The 1.5C threshold is symbolically important, as all governments agreed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to try to limit global warming to that level. Since then, diplomats presiding over climate talks have described the temperature goal as the world’s “North Star” and pledged to “keep 1.5 alive”.
The WMO’s forecasters argue that, if average global temperatures in the years from 2025-2029 are more than 1.5C hotter than the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900, this does not necessarily mean that the Paris Agreement goal would be breached. They and scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say temperature rises should be measured in 20-year not five-year averages.
Heading for 1.5C
Nonetheless, Adam Scaife, a British physicist who worked on the latest WMO “annual to decadal climate prediction” update, told reporters that keeping warming below 1.5C – even over a longer time-frame – “would require a fortuitous intervention of natural climate variability”.
This could include, he said, a La Niña weather phenomenon or negative Arctic Oscillation leading to Eurasian winter cooling. But “it’s very unlikely that natural variability is going to come to our aid in that particular manner,” he added.
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Scaife’s colleague Leon Hermanson, from the British Met Office, added that a volcanic eruption “would change the forecast quite a lot”. Volcanic eruptions release sulphur dioxide which reflects sunlight from the earth, causing a large but temporary drop in global temperatures.
In the Paris Agreement, all governments signed up to limiting global temperature rise to “well below 2C above pre-industrial levels” and to “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would signficantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.
Governments never agreed how to define a 1.5C rise in global temperatures, but the influential IPCC scientists said it should be measured as an average over a 20-year period.
Twenty-year average
To assess this with real-world observations would mean waiting ten years from any particular year to gather enough data to know if the average had surpassed 1.5C in that year. So instead the WMO’s forecasters estimate the 20-year average by using observations for the past ten years combined with predictions for the next ten years.
Using this way of calculating the 20-year average for 2024, they found that last year the world was 1.44C hotter than pre-industrial levels – even though 2024 taken alone was 1.55C above pre-industrial levels. “We are still shy of 1.5C in the global average,” Scaife said.
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The WMO report says there is an 80% chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029 will be warmer than the hottest year on record – currently 2024 – and there is an 86% chance that at least one year will be more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial period.
The forecasters also estimate there is a 1% chance that one year between 2025 and 2029 will be more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. Scaife called this a “shocking possibility”, which had gone from “effectively impossible just a few years ago” to now just “exceptionally unlikely”.
Speaking to reporters online from a “sunny Geneva”, the WMO’s director of climate services Chris Hewitt said it’s “tempting to get fixated” on whether the 1.5C limit has been breached but “every fraction of a degree matters – it’s really important to keep the warming as low as possible”.
He said that the Paris Agreement has reduced the amount by which global temperatures are predicted to rise, and the COP30 climate talks in Brazil in November are “an opportunity for the world to come together” and for “the decision makers and policy makers to take climate action”.
The post Scientists predict global warming of more than 1.5C for 2025-2029 period appeared first on Climate Home News.
Scientists predict global warming of more than 1.5C for 2025-2029 period
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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