Global warming has hit “a milestone” as average temperatures have exceeded the critical 1.5C threshold for the longest period yet, European scientists warned on Wednesday.
According to the EU’s Earth observation service Copernicus, 2025 ranks as the third-warmest year on record, behind 2023 and 2024, with global temperatures averaging more than the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious limit for the first time over a three-year period.
“Exceeding a three-year average of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is a milestone none of us wished to reach,” said Mauro Facchini, head of the Unit for Earth Observation in the European Commission.
Samantha Burgess, deputy director at Copernicus, said the last three years had been “exceptionally warm” as a result of the record amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily caused by burning fossil fuels, as well as record ocean heat, fuelled in part by the El Niño weather pattern.
“New era of climate extremes” as global warming fuels devastating impacts in 2025
In 2025, global temperatures were 1.47 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, slightly cooler than in 2023 and 0.13C lower than in 2024, the hottest year on record, according to the Copernicus analysis.
Temperatures in tropical regions in 2025 were lower than in 2023 and 2024, influenced by a weak La Niña, which is when surface waters in the Pacific Ocean are cooler than usual.
Paris pact’s 1.5C goal to be breached this decade
When governments adopted the 2015 Paris Agreement, they committed to holding the increase in the global average temperature to “well below 2C above pre-industrial levels” and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C.
Scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Meteorological Organisation say that temperature increases should be measured over 20-year periods, meaning that a one-year or a three-year breach does not mean the Paris targets have been missed.
But the European agency expects that, based on the current rate of warming, the world will reach the threshold of long-term warming above 1.5C before the end of 2029, over a decade earlier than scientists had predicted at the time the Paris accord was signed.
“The expectation was that emissions would be reduced more rapidly than what we’ve observed over the last decade,” said Burgess. “That’s really the big difference between where we thought the world would look back in 2015, versus where it looks now at the beginning of 2026.”
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For the first time last year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres conceded that a “temporary overshoot” of the 1.5C warming threshold was inevitable, starting in the early 2030s at the latest. He told global leaders gathered at the COP30 summit in November that failure to curb global heating amounted to “moral failure and deadly negligence”.
Commenting on the Copernicus findings, Helen Clarkson, CEO of the US-based Climate Group, which builds networks working for net-zero emissions, said the average of 1.5C of warming over the past three years showed “the warnings of scientists are becoming a dangerous reality”. Governments that do not act to cut emissions are putting their economic security at risk, she emphasised.
“Too many leaders are propping up fossil fuels, blocking people and businesses from accessing the cost savings and benefits of cheap, clean energy. But we can break this trend: accelerate the transition to renewables, electric cars and clean electrification,” she added.
Antarctic saw hottest year on record
Scientists have warned that, while the temperature limit is not a cliff edge, every additional fraction of a degree of warming increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts and storms, triggering severe impacts.
In 2025, polar regions experienced significant temperature anomalies, with the Antarctic seeing its hottest year on record and the Arctic its second-warmest, the Copernicus analysis found. That partly offset the less extreme temperatures observed in tropical regions last year.
Global warming is causing the world’s ice caps to melt at an accelerating pace. In February 2025, the combined sea ice cover from both poles fell to its lowest value since at least the start of satellite observations in the late 1970s, the EU agency said.
Burgess expects that 2026 will be among the top five warmest years, with temperatures comparable to 2025, but she noted it is too early to tell how natural climate cycles will develop over the coming months and affect human-made global warming.
The longer-term trend, however, is for continued rises in temperatures, she said.
“When we look at the continued rate of emissions from countries around the world, the reality is, unfortunately, that the last three years we have experienced – when we look back in five years’ time – will be cooler than average rather than continue to be exceptional,” she told journalists.
The post Global warming topped key 1.5C limit over last three years, EU scientists say appeared first on Climate Home News.
Global warming topped key 1.5C limit over last three years, EU scientists say
Twice as many animals died due to heat stress en route to slaughterhouses during the UK’s record-hot summer in 2025 compared to 2024, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
Government figures showed that nearly 6,600 animals – mostly chickens – died in transport as a result of the sweltering summer heat in England and Wales from June to August 2025.
This compared to 3,100 in summer 2024 and no official cases in summer 2023.
These figures were still below the more than 18,500 deaths recorded in the summer of 2022 when UK temperatures hit 40C for the first time, as previously reported by Carbon Brief.
The deaths are a “horrifying reminder of what happens when animals are treated as cargo”, said an animal-rights group spokesperson.
Detailed descriptions included in the data on the deaths highlighted thousands of animals dying amid heat stress, high humidity levels and long journeys.
Thousands of animals also died due to cold, wintry conditions, with more than 13,000 deaths recorded between December 2024 and February 2025 – almost double the previous winter.
Heat deaths
Carbon Brief has analysed recent years of “dead on arrival” data focused on livestock that died due to heat or cold stress en route to slaughterhouses.
The data was obtained through the UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is responsible for the compliance of slaughterhouses in England and Wales.
At least 1m chickens die in the UK each year while being transported to slaughterhouses due to suffocation, poor transport procedures and other issues, reported the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in 2018 .
Pigs, cows, sheep and other animals also die in this way in smaller numbers.
The new data showed that 6,595 animals died due to heat stress en route to abattoirs between June and August 2025, which was the warmest summer on record in the UK.
According to the Met Office, human-caused climate change made this summer heat 70 times more likely to occur.
Carbon Brief requested non-publicly accessible details of “dead on arrival cases” that were categorised as “suspected heat/cold stress”.
Each incident contained a detailed description written by a vet with supporting evidence about the condition of the animals, the transport conditions and the suspected cause of death. These are filed to the FSA.
The information showed that certain individual days had particularly high death tolls. Almost 1,000 chickens died in a number of incidents during a heatwave on 11 July 2025. Some chickens showed visible signs of heat stress, such as panting and immobility, the reports said.
On 12 August, amid more high temperatures, 2,154 chickens died in heat-stress incidents.
Body temperatures of some of the chickens that died on this day were as high as 46C.
A chicken will die if its body temperature exceeds 45C and it should ideally stay as close to 41C as possible, according to a 2005 document from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).
The table below shows the total number of heat- and cold-related deaths of livestock in recent years, based on the data obtained through FOI.
The “dead on arrival” information covered every summer and winter since 2023, alongside the summer of 2022.
The figures were likely an underestimate of the total number of livestock deaths due to high or low temperatures, as they only included deaths with “suspected cold/heat stress” as a listed category.
However, the incident descriptions in many other deaths mentioned high and low temperatures as contributing factors, despite the ultimate cause of death not being labelled as such. These were not included in Carbon Brief’s tally.
The figures covered deaths in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland do not record the cause of deaths en route to slaughterhouses, so it is not possible to single out the cases linked to high or low temperatures.
Preventing deaths
These livestock deaths are a “horrifying reminder of what happens when animals are treated as cargo”, says Alex Harman, campaigns manager at animal rights group Animal Aid. He tells Carbon Brief:
“These 6,600 individuals [in summer 2025] did not just die, they suffered prolonged, agonising heat exhaustion inside metal containers – anyone experiencing the UK’s heatwave this week will be able to empathise.”
Climate change is “simply amplifying the violence already built into animal farming”, he says, adding that the only “compassionate, logical” solution is to “stop viewing animals as products and urgently transition to a plant-based food system”.
Pigs and chickens cannot sweat and face difficulties cooling down on very hot days.
Cramped or long journeys can exacerbate this, combined with high humidity levels, sometimes upwards of 80%, the livestock data showed.
Abigail Penny, the executive director of Animal Equality UK, tells Carbon Brief that “these same scenes of extreme animal suffering play out every summer and, if nothing is done, it’s only going to get worse”.
Workers transporting animals during extreme weather conditions are expected to put in place measures to protect them, according to UK government guidance.
These measures can include ensuring water and ventilation systems function properly on vehicles, avoiding travel during the hottest or coldest parts of the day and recognising signs of heat and cold stress in animals.
The FSA said that the number of “dead on arrival” incidents caused by cold and heat stress increased by more than 50% between April 2024 and March 2025 compared to the same period the year prior.
The FSA and Defra declined Carbon Brief’s request to comment on the new figures.
Cold deaths
Thousands of animals also die due to cold stress while travelling to slaughterhouses each year. Carbon Brief assessed data for these deaths in the winters of 2023-24 and 2024-25.
At least 13,057 livestock animals died due to cold weather conditions between December 2024 and February 2025. This is more than double the number – 6,981 – that died the previous winter.
On 6 February 2025 alone, 4,056 poultry deaths were reported due to cold weather impacts.
Some livestock also died due to cold conditions in the summer months.
For example, 326 animals died amid cold weather in the summer of 2023. No official heat-related deaths were recorded in that period, but a number of incidents referred to hot-weather conditions or heat stress as contributing factors.
Overall, 2023 was a very warm year in the UK, with soaring temperatures in June and September. At least 3,103 animals died from heat stress in September, the figures also showed.
Conditions were cooler and wetter in July and August, which may have contributed to the absence of heat-stress deaths.
Most cold deaths during warmer months occurred in the early hours of the morning or overnight when temperatures dropped, the FOI data shows.
On 28 August 2025, for example, 134 chickens died due to cold stress. The incident description outlined that the animals were “very wet”, dirty and had few feathers, which can reduce a chicken’s ability to hold warmth.
The animals were transported overnight to a slaughterhouse and “suffered distress and pain” because of the weather and other factors, the description noted.
The post Livestock heat deaths in transit doubled in UK record-hot summer of 2025 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Livestock heat deaths in transit doubled in UK record-hot summer of 2025
For the first time in the UK, more new electric vehicles (EVs) have been sold over a 12-month period than petrol cars, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
The news comes amid a battle over the future of the UK’s “zero-emissions vehicle” (ZEV) mandate, which the car industry and some unions are pushing to water down.
The mandate sets a rising target for the share of new car sales that must be “zero-emissions vehicles” (ZEVs) each year – primarily “pure” or “battery” EVs that only run on electricity.
The car industry argues that demand for these cars is too low to meet the requirements of the ZEV mandate, despite the fact that the industry has “over-complied” to date.
Carbon Brief’s analysis of the latest data on new UK car sales, shown in the figure below, illustrates that demand for EVs has, in fact, grown consistently – and it has now overtaken demand for petrol cars for the first time.
In the 12 months to May 2026, UK consumers bought 516,490 new BEVs, against only 504,010 new petrol cars.
Note that the analysis is based on figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). Figures published by the UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) are based on a slightly different categorisation for hybrid cars.
All hybrids run entirely on petrol or diesel fuel, while also carrying a small battery and an electric motor. ACEA counts these cars separately to petrol and diesel models.
In contrast, the SMMT counts what it calls “mild” hybrids as petrol cars, while listing “full” hybrids – such as Toyota’s Prius – in a separate category.
The ACEA data shows that hybrids are the most popular type of car in the UK, as illustrated in the figure below, but also shows that their sales are relatively stagnant.
Some 56,321 hybrids were sold in May 2026, the most recent month with data from ACEA. This is an increase of 1,181 year-on-year, or just 2%.
In contrast, EV sales grew 34% to reach 43,931, while petrol cars were down 14% to 35,068.
Plug-in hybrids, which can be run on electricity from the grid or from a petrol engine, are also seeing relatively rapid sales growth, up 24% year-on-year in May 2026 to 22,167.
(In the UK, numberplates for “pure” EVs that only run on electricity are marked out by a distinctive green stripe on the left-hand side. These stripes are not used for any type of hybrid.)
The new analysis for the UK follows a similar milestone for the EU, with more BEVs having been sold in the month of December 2025 than petrol cars.
The UK first saw more sales of BEVs than petrol cars in a single month in December 2022, but this pattern has only been repeated on a consistent basis over the past year.
Globally, EV sales grew by 20% in 2025 and accounted for one in every four new cars sold, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The agency said that global EV sales were set to grow by another 15% in 2026.
The post Analysis: UK sales of electric vehicles just overtook petrol cars for the first time appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK sales of electric vehicles just overtook petrol cars for the first time
This could be a big year for the circular economy.
In autumn, the European Commission is due to adopt the Circular Economy Act (CEA), aimed at supporting the EU in its stated aim to become a world leader in circularity by 2030.
There is a clear environmental imperative behind the legislation, but also a geopolitical one. Europe imports the vast majority of all its critical raw materials; for example, 100% of its heavy rare earth metals come from China and 71% of its platinum from South Africa.
The bloc is seeking to reduce its dependency on imports of key commodities, energy and materials, and as a result achieve greater self-sufficiency. Circular products are one route to achieving that.
Circular ambitions
Whether the EU’s aim is achievable, or not, brings into sharp relief the current state of the circular economy. According to the European Environment Agency, in 2024, secondary recovered materials made up 12% of total material use across Europe. This was only 1.5% higher than in 2010.
But, by some estimates, the global circular economy is already worth around $700 billion and could reach several trillion within the next decade. This rate of growth would take considerable support from national governments, starting with something akin to the CEA, which aims to double the EU’s circularity rate to 24% and create a single market for secondary raw materials. The hope is that this will stoke demand from businesses to adopt more circular practices.
Carsten Wachholz, business-policy engagement lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, described the forthcoming act as “a critical opportunity to turn circular solutions from a niche proposition into a mainstream market choice,” adding that by harmonising rules across the single market the EU can allow the circular economy to “scale across borders”.
From there the argument runs that rules created in Europe will be copied in other markets, shaping global supply chains and standards elsewhere. “The EU can work towards shared international ambition, reducing protectionism risks, and unlocking large-scale investment globally,” he added.
Making two ends meet
Raising awareness of what is meant by circularity, and being able to identify and treat circular products correctly, is one of the challenges the sector faces.
The global economy has been built on a simple linear structure where we source a material, create something out of it, sell it on and then throw it away. This process, sometimes called ‘take, make, use, dispose’ is the opposite of the principles of circularity.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation defines the circular economy as a system where “materials never become waste”. In such a system, products and materials are “kept in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling and composting”.
Circularity is about the whole life cycle of a product, seeing how it can be used for longer, upgrading when possible, and then potentially using that product to create something else afterwards. The intention with circularity is to increase the use of non-virgin materials, reducing the need to extract more from the ground.
Signify: “We believe resilience is becoming more important to businesses right now”
Thomas Marinelli, head of sustainable innovation and design at Signify, a global lighting company, said: “I once explained it to a child with Lego. You put Lego blocks together and you can pull them apart again and make something new.”
Circular practices also lead to more products – phones, washing machines, lighting – being leased instead of created from scratch. These services cut the need for large upfront investments and reduce environmental impacts.
How business is responding
The next step is to convince businesses it is the right thing to do, from a financial, environmental and product perspective.
“Using products for longer and using less material and energy is a topic of interest in our markets,” added Marinelli, while at the same time acknowledging that part of the challenge is “awareness creation”.
“We need to prove that products made from non-virgin, or bio-circular materials are at least as good. And that a business’s environmental footprint is much lower when you use non-virgin materials,” he said.
Part of the awareness-raising piece is showing that older products can be repaired, refurbished and remanufactured, depending on their condition. Signify takes lighting systems that are up to 10 years old, and makes them new again, saving on material waste and cutting emissions, often at a lower cost than buying a new product.
A growing number of companies are already sold on the benefits of going circular. A recent survey from the World Economic Forum found that out of 491 manufacturing executives, 79% said circularity is crucial to their business, and 95% said it will be important within three years.
Carrefour, the French retail giant, has adopted circular practices in some of its stores as a way of driving down energy costs and cutting carbon emissions. In one of its Belgian stores, the company installed 3D-printed light fixtures made from recycled water bottles. Lighting systems were made from recycled materials that can be fully dismantled and used to make new ones after they reach the end of their natural life.
A separate example comes from Denmark where the area of Tuborg Havn in Copenhagen chose to upgrade its historic street lamps with efficient LEDs instead of replacing them. More than 80 light fixtures were cleaned, upgraded and reinstalled as part of the new initiative, and the new lights will be 3.5 times more efficient than the old ones. The initiative has allowed the harbour to retain its historic character while reducing energy consumption and modernising the area.
Overcoming barriers
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation recently coordinated an open letter to the European Commission – signed by 12 global brands including The LEGO Group, H&M and Philips – calling for lawmakers to support new reforms that address common barriers facing circular products.
These include simplifying EU-wide rules, creating tax incentives and stronger financial support for the burgeoning sector. Current VAT rules, for example, can mean secondhand goods are repeatedly taxed across their lifetime, something the charity is seeking to change.
“Capital is not lacking,” said Wachholz, “but the risk profile of circular economy projects keeps too many ventures stuck at pilot scale rather than reaching industrial deployment.”
The letter calls for the creation of a secondary materials platform to improve price transparency, digital product passports to track material flows, and the creation of new industrial hubs to provide the infrastructure and technology the sector needs in order to scale up.
Those measures, coupled with fossil energy price spikes, will help circular products compete on cost with the extractive economy, experts say. “Using recycled materials or non-virgin alternatives can become competitive in the long run,” said Marinelli, pointing to the volatility in the price of raw materials. “If you look at plastics, when oil is a problem, the price of plastics goes up. But recycled plastic stays at the same level.”
“And it’s not only about materials but production as well. When volumes of recycled materials go up, then the price remains stable or goes down,” he added.
Opportune moment
The current geopolitical environment could serve to support growth in the circular economy. Supply chain constraints caused by the war in Iran have caused commodity prices to skyrocket. This has led many companies – and countries – to seek ways to protect themselves against future shocks.
In that context, new circular policies and products could receive a favourable hearing from businesses looking to build resilience, cut costs and protect nature. A future where circularity is fully embedded across society will need time and support to grow, but may well be on its way.
Adam Wentworth is a freelance journalist based in Brighton, UK
The post Can the circular economy win over big business? appeared first on Climate Home News.
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