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Last week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Hangzhou, China, marked the third time that governments have failed to agree on a timeline for the organisation’s seventh assessment cycle (AR7).

A large group of countries pushed for the reports to be published by the end of 2028, to allow them to feed into the UN’s second global stocktake – a mechanism that will gauge progress towards the Paris Agreement goals.

However, others – including the Chinese hosts – pushed for a longer deadline, warning of “compression in the timeline” that could affect participation, particularly from developing countries.

The meeting ran over by more than 30 hours, meaning that many small delegations – especially small-island developing states and least-developed countries – were unable to stay to the end.

As a result, the final decisions were made without their participation.

According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), reporting from inside the meeting, timeline discussions will be taken up again in the next IPCC meeting in late 2025, “with hope that the panel can finally break its deadlock”.

“The absence of a timeline puts potential contributing scientists in a difficult position,” one IPCC scientist tells Carbon Brief.

He notes that the “call for authors” will open soon, but warns how challenging it will be to accept a nomination “if there is no clarity on when a massive time commitment for the IPCC is expected”.

The meeting also saw outlines agreed for AR7’s three main reports – despite the “entrenched positions” of some delegations “complicating efforts to find consensus”, the ENB reports.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea says the process was “probably the most difficult session I can recall”.

In a further complication, reports emerged ahead of the meeting that US officials had been denied permission to attend and a contract for the technical support unit of one of the working groups had been terminated.

It was the first US absence in IPCC history.

Skea says that the IPCC will “have to start thinking more seriously” about how to manage a potential US withdrawal, but the priority last week had been to “get through” the meeting and its lengthy agenda.

He adds that the IPCC has still “had no formal communication from the US at all”.

Below, Carbon Brief unpacks the deliberations at the meeting and the decisions that were made.

Splits in Sofia

IPCC “sessions” are meetings that bring together officials and experts from member countries and observer organisations.

Collectively, they decide on the work of the IPCC, including the scope, outline and timeline for reports – all overseen by the IPCC’s “bureau” of elected scientists.

With its sixth assessment report (AR6) completed in 2023, the focus of the IPCC has turned to the seventh assessment (AR7) and the reports it will deliver over the next five years.

At its meetings in Istanbul and Sofia in 2024, the IPCC agreed that AR7 should include – among other outputs – the traditional set of three “working group” reports, one “special” report on cities and two “methodology” reports on “short-lived climate forcers” and “carbon dioxide removal technologies, carbon capture utilisation and storage”.

The three working group reports – each typically running to thousands of pages – focus on climate science (WG1), impacts and adaptation (WG2) and mitigation (WG3).

However, the timeline for these reports was not agreed at either meeting. Countries were split on whether the working group reports should be published in time to inform the UN’s second global stocktake, which will be completed in 2028. The stocktake will gauge international progress towards the Paris Agreement goals. (See: AR7 schedule)

The final decision on the AR7 timeline was, thus, postponed to 2025. As a result, the Hangzhou meeting would need to revisit the timeline – as well as approve the scope and outline of the working group reports themselves.

The Hangzhou meeting, originally slated for five days over 24-28 February, brought together almost 450 participants from governments, international organisations and civil society – including 300 delegates from 124 member countries and 48 observer organisations.

IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea tells Carbon Brief that the agenda contained “six days’ worth [of items] rather than five” and they “started with three sessions a day right from the beginning to try and get ahead”.

US no-show

Just a few days before the meeting opened, Axios reported that government officials from the US had been “denied” permission to attend. Furthermore, it said, the contract for the technical support unit for WG3 had been “terminated” by its provider NASA, meaning its staff “will also not be traveling to China or supporting the IPCC process moving forward”.

(Each working group has a technical support unit, or TSU, which provides scientific and operational support for report authors and the group’s leadership.)

In further reporting, Nature quoted a NASA spokesperson, who said that the move was prompted by guidance “to eliminate non-essential consulting contracts”. The Washington Post reported that the group of 10 TSU staff “still have their jobs…but have been blocked from doing any IPCC-related work since 14 February”. Bloomberg added that WG3 co-chair and NASA chief scientist Dr Kate Cavlin would also not attend the meeting.

Axios speculated that the move “could be the beginning of a bigger withdrawal from US involvement in international climate science work”.

Carbon Brief analysis suggests that the US has provided around 30% of the voluntary contributions to IPCC budgets since it was established in 1988. Totalling more than 53m Swiss francs (£46m), this is more than four times that of the next-largest direct contributor, the European Union.

The first Trump administration cut its contributions to the IPCC in 2017, with other countries stepping up their funding in response. The US subsequently resumed its contributions.


Chart showing the 10 largest direct contributors to the IPCC since its inception in 1988, with the US (red bars), European Union (dark blue) and UNFCCC (mid blue) highlighted. Grey bars show all other contributors combined. Source: IPCC (2025) and (2010). Contributions have been adjusted, as per IPCC footnotes, so they appear in the year they are received, rather than pledged.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Skea says the absence of the US at the meeting itself “didn’t disturb the basic way that the meeting operated”. He adds:

“Every meeting we have 60 countries that don’t turn up out of our membership – the US was now one of that group. I mean, frankly, nobody within the meeting mentioned the US absence. We just got on and did it.”

On the longer-term implications, Skea says that “we didn’t spare an awful lot of time for thinking about”. However, the IPCC will “have to start thinking more seriously” once they have more information, he says, noting that “we have had no formal communication from the US at all”.

Regarding the WG3 TSU, there is no “comparable circumstance” in the IPCC’s history, Skea says. Typically, the co-chair from a developed country is “supposed to bring support for a TSU with them”, he says. (Each working group has two co-chairs – one from a developed country and one from a developing country.) However, the WG3 TSU is already partly supported in Malaysia, where co-chair Prof Joy Jacqueline Pereira is based.

(As an IPCC progress report for the Hangzhou meeting points out, the WG3 TSU has already “taken shape”, although it is not yet fully staffed. The “node” in Malaysia was established with the donor support of the US, Norway and New Zealand. There is also a job advert for a “senior science officer” in the WG3 TSU currently on the IPCC’s website.)

Skea suggests that the situation can be resolved with “creative solutions”, adding that the IPCC “can take any decision, regardless of past principles or past decisions. So I think, with ingenuity, there will be ways around it.”

Prof Frank Jotzo, a professor of environmental economics at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy and WG3 lead author on AR5 and AR6, describes the situation as “highly unusual”. He tells Carbon Brief:

“I would expect that other developed countries will come to the rescue to fund the WG3 TSU, to rescue the process and to demonstrate that Trump will not upend this multilateral process. Staff positions could then presumably be either in those countries or in Malaysia, home of the other WG3 co-chair.”

On the US involvement in the IPCC more broadly, CNN reported the comments of a “scientist involved in the report”, who said they were “not sure” what the block on US officials will mean for the planned work going forward, or “if US scientists will participate in the writing of the IPCC reports”.

Science reported that, although US contributions to the IPCC are “typically run out of the White House by the Global Change Research Programme, NASA is the lead on managing GCRP’s contracts”. It added that “NASA leadership, not GCRP, decided to end the TSU contract”.

Following the China meeting, member states are set to solicit nominations of scientists to author the working group reports in AR7, Science explained:

“GCRP usually runs the process [for the US], but the administration’s moves have some wondering whether it will proceed as normal. If not, IPCC does allow scientists to self-nominate without their country’s involvement. But US authors might be shut out anyway if travel funding ends.”

For example, the US nominated 250 scientists to be authors on the special report on cities, which will be part of the AR7 cycle. (Authors can also be nominated by other countries, observer organisations and the IPCC bureau.)

Dr Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, posted on social media last week that, “despite some reports, there is no blanket prohibition on US scientists interacting with or serving with the IPCC”.

AR7 schedule

A key agenda item for the Hangzhou meeting was to finalise the timeline for publishing AR7 reports. This is a contentious point on which delegates were unable to reach an agreement at either the Istanbul or Sofia meetings.

Heading into the meeting, countries were split on whether the working group reports should be published in time to inform the UN’s second global stocktake, which will be completed in 2028.

In the IPCC plenary on Saturday afternoon, Skea emphasised the “enormous effort and time” taken over this decision – including during the scoping meeting at Kuala Lumpur – and stressed the importance of an integrated approach to planning across the three working groups.

The working head of the WG2 TSU put forward the proposed schedule for AR7 cycle, which would see all working group reports published in time to feed into the second global stocktake in 2028.

A long list of countries underscored the importance of a “timely, policy-relevant” AR7 cycle, urging the adoption of the schedule put forward by the IPCC bureau in order to avoid failing to reach an agreement, according to the ENB. These included the UK, EU, Australia, Japan, Luxembourg, Turkey and Jamaica. (Jamaica was speaking on behalf of the other small island developing states who were unable to stay past the scheduled close of the plenary session.)

However, India, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and South Africa called for the schedule to be revised, citing “time compression in the timeline and challenges for scientists from developing countries to produce literature”, the ENB reports. And Kenya “expressed concern about inclusivity and called for more flexibility on timing”.

At this point, many countries raised concern about the number of countries who had already left the session, with Australia noting that “many of them are precisely those who lack capacity and depend on IPCC’s assessments”.

Skea stressed the need to agree a timeline in this meeting so that work on the main reports – including author selection – could progress. Discussions continued in a huddle throughout Saturday afternoon and into the evening.

European delegates huddle as discussions run into the evening of 1 March 2025.
European delegates huddle as discussions run into the evening of 1 March 2025. Credit: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou

Late on Saturday evening, Italy and Ireland, supported by a handful of other countries, suggested an additional option to stretch the timeline to allow an extra month of “wiggle room”.

However, India and South Africa “said the addition of one or two months did not make it a viable counter-suggestion”, according to the ENB. The three countries instead suggested completing the WG1 report by July 2028, WG2 in December 2028, WG3 in April 2029 and the synthesis report in the second half of 2029.

To move forward, Skea proposed agreeing on the outlines of the working groups and inviting experts to start their work, including putting out the call for author nominations and convening the first lead authors meeting in 2025. However, he said that the timeline decision would be deferred until the next IPCC meeting in late 2025.

Skea tells Carbon Brief that the meeting was helpful for “clarifying where different groups of countries were coming from”. He says that the opposition to a stocktake-aligned timeline was “not about the outcome and the synchronisation with the political process”, but, rather, “the needs of countries for doing their reviews of the [report] drafts – how frequently, how rapidly, they were coming”.

Even with the two options – a proposed timeline and a counter suggestion – resolving remaining differences won’t be “easy”, Skea says, adding that “I think we will be off to do a little bit of consultation offline before we get to IPCC-63 to see how we resolve it”.

“The absence of a timeline puts potential contributing scientists in a difficult position,” Rogelj tells Carbon Brief. He adds:

“My understanding is that a call for authors will be launched soon. However, how can one accept a nomination or subsequent selection if there is no clarity on when a massive time commitment for the IPCC is expected. It shows how political games regarding the timing of scientific evidence for the negotiations dominate considerations for authors and considerations of delivering the best possible report.”

WG2 co-chair Prof ​​Bart van den Hurk tells Carbon Brief that the failure to agree on a timeline means that experts invited to take part in reports “will not receive a schedule for all the meetings they’re supposed to attend”, leading to possible agenda clashes later.

It also means that they “don’t know for how long they’re signed up for this time-intensive yet voluntary role, which is a big ask”, he adds.

Assessment report outlines

Heading into the Hangzhou meeting, countries had agreed to produce a full set of assessment reports with a synthesis report, along with a special report on climate change and cities and two methodology reports.

The scope, outlines and titles for WG1, WG2 and WG3 reports were prepared at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur in December 2024, to be reviewed and approved in Hangzhou.

At the scoping meeting, some experts suggested that reports should include “plain-language summaries”, because local authorities, companies and the general public often do not know the “jargon”, the ENB reports.

When brought to the Hangzhou meeting, countries including Australia, France and Vanuatu supported this suggestion, stressing the importance of accessibility. Some countries also called for shorter reports focused on new science.

However, the Russian Federation, India and Saudi Arabia were opposed, the ENB says. The Russian Federation argued that the report is intended for an expert audience and India said that these summaries “would compete with the [summary for policymakers] and IPCC outreach mechanisms”, adding that any plain-language summaries would need to be approved line-by-line.

Later, the WG1 co-chairs suggested changing “plain-language summaries” to “plain-language overviews,” in which authors provide a chapter overview, including graphics, in a similar manner to the FAQs sections.

About 20 countries, including the UK, Canada, Ukraine, Chile, China and Libya, supported the suggestion. However, Algeria, Russian Federation, India and Saudi Arabia continued to oppose it, the ENB says.

A “huddle” was convened to find consensus, which, ultimately, agreed to delete any reference to “plain language overviews” and instead encouraged authors to ensure that the executive summary of each report is clear.

The countries then discussed the proposed outline for each working group report in turn. Skea tells Carbon Brief that this process “had some of the quality of an approval session” for a finished report, adding:

“But people did compromise in the end and we did get the outlines of the reports agreed, which, for me, was the real objective of the meeting.”

For WG1, many countries welcomed the proposed outline and some suggested changes. For example, Switzerland called for addressing the unique challenges faced by high altitude and latitude environments. And India asked for the inclusion of a chapter on monsoons and deletion of a chapter on climate information and services, the ENB says.

When discussing the chapter on abrupt changes, tipping points and high-impact events in the Earth system, Saudi Arabia and India objected to singling out “tipping points” in the title and suggested deleting them, the ENB says. However, Switzerland, supported by a handful of other countries, highlighted their relevance for policy and science and called for them to be kept in.

On Friday, after a huddle, the title was changed to: “Abrupt changes, low-likelihood high-impact events and critical thresholds, including tipping points, in the Earth system.”

Delegates agreed on the following chapters for the WG1 report:

  • Chapter 1: Framing, methods and knowledge sources;
  • Chapter 2: Large-scale changes in the climate system and their causes;
  • Chapter 3: Changes in regional climate and extremes and their causes;
  • Chapter 4: Advances in process understanding of Earth system changes;
  • Chapter 5: Scenarios and projected future global temperatures;
  • Chapter 6: Global projections of Earth system responses across time scales;
  • Chapter 7: Projections of regional climate and extremes;
  • Chapter 8: Abrupt changes, low-likelihood high impact events and critical thresholds, including tipping points, in the Earth system;
  • Chapter 9: Earth system responses under pathways towards temperature stabilisation, including overshoot pathways; and
  • Chapter 10: Climate information and services.

On the WG2 report outline, Kenya said AR6 definition of maladaptation is “limiting” and called for the term to be redefined for the new report, the ENB says. Meanwhile, Brazil and Switzerland called for the report to assess the risks of solar radiation management, given its cross-cutting nature and potential impacts on sectors, such as agriculture.

Senegal underscored the need for a focus on losses and damages, expressing hope that this will “help showcase those in greatest need”. And Saudi Arabia called for a full assessment of the potential of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies.

Delegates agreed on the following chapters for the WG2 report:

Global assessment chapters:

  • Chapter 2: Vulnerabilities, impacts and risks;
  • Chapter 3: Current adaptation progress, effectiveness and adequacy;
  • Chapter 4: Adaptation options and conditions for accelerating action;
  • Chapter 5: Responses to losses and damages; and
  • Chapter 6: Finance.
  • Chapters 7-13 are regional assessment chapters on Africa, Asia, Australasia, Central and South America, Europe, North America and small islands.

Thematic assessment chapters:

  • Chapter 14: Terrestrial, freshwater and cryospheric biodiversity, ecosystems and their services;
  • Chapter 15: Ocean, coastal, and cryospheric biodiversity, ecosystems and their services;
  • Chapter 16: Water;
  • Chapter 17: Agriculture, food, forestry, fibre and fisheries;
  • Chapter 18: Adaptation of human settlements, infrastructure and industry systems;
  • Chapter 19: Health and well-being; and
  • Chapter 20: Poverty, livelihoods, mobility and fragility

Among the comments on the WG3 outline, the Russian Federation cautioned against discussing national policies – describing this as “beyond [WG3’s mandate], the ENB says. Belgium suggested including social tipping points in the report, the ENB says, while Saudi Arabia argued the IPCC reports “should be neutral with respect to policy and called for a full assessment of the potential of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies”.

Delegates agreed on the following chapters for the WG3 report:

  • Chapter 1: Introduction and framing;
  • Chapter 2: Past and current anthropogenic emissions and their drivers;
  • Chapter 3: Projected futures in the context of sustainable development and climate change;
  • Chapter 4: Sustainable development and mitigation;
  • Chapter 5: Enablers and barriers;
  • Chapter 6: Policies and governance and international cooperation;
  • Chapter 7: Finance;
  • Chapter 8: Services and demand;
  • Chapter 9: Energy systems;
  • Chapter 10: Industry;
  • Chapter 11: Transport and mobility services and systems;
  • Chapter 12: Buildings and human settlements;
  • Chapter 13: Agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU);
  • Chapter 14: Integration and interactions across sectors and systems; and
  • Chapter 15: Potentials, limits and risks of carbon dioxide removal.

CDR report

Among the other items on the Hangzhou agenda was the finalisation of the scope and outline of a methodology report on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies, slated for publication in 2027.

At a scoping meeting held in Copenhagen in October, the IPCC’s task force on national greenhouse gas inventories – which is coordinating the methodology report – agreed on a title, scope and outline for the forthcoming report.

Delegates in Hangzhou failed to reach agreement on the plan for the report, after disagreements emerged around chapter seven of the proposed outline – which looks at carbon removals from oceans, lakes and rivers.

A number of delegations – including India, France, Belgium, Chile and Turkey – objected to the inclusion of a standalone chapter in the methodology report on carbon removal from waterbodies, the ENB says. The countries argued there is insufficient understanding of the environmental impacts and effectiveness of certain marine CDR technologies, including ocean alkalinity enhancement.

Saudi Arabia was among the countries that argued in favour of a chapter on carbon removal from waterbodies. The Gulf nation said that its removal would set a “worrying precedent” and be a “bad sign” for emerging technologies, according to the ENB.

With no consensus reached, delegates agreed on the title and chapters one to six of the report, but postponed further deliberations on chapter seven until the next plenary meeting.

IPCC chair Skea tells Carbon Brief that delegates “were extremely close to getting agreement” on the report, but had been hampered by a lack of “ingenuity and time”.

He adds that a solution which helped broker agreement on the outline for the special report on short-lived climate forcers at the last IPCC plenary meeting could offer a path forward for the methodology report. (After a debate arose around the inclusion of hydrogen emissions in that report, country delegations compromised on a footnote stating the matter would be addressed in a future cycle.) Skea explains:

“The [IPCC’s] task force on national greenhouse gas inventories always has this issue as to whether there’s enough scientific evidence to justify bringing a technology or a technique in. If there are doubts about the quality of the basic evidence for bringing it in, there are devices for kicking the can down the road just a little bit.”

Some insiders speculated that the standoff over the methodology report in Hangzhou could have consequences for the overall AR7 timeline. They told Carbon Brief the delay to the report’s start could result in shifted review periods and necessitate an extra approval plenary in 2028.

Expert meetings

A number of expert meetings and workshops were approved in Hangzhou.

This included two workshops designed to explore “new and extended” methods of assessment at the IPCC. One will focus on the incorporation of diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge, while the other will look at the use of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

An expert meeting on methodologies, metrics and indicators for assessing climate change impacts was also approved.

Proposals to hold an expert meeting on high-impact events and Earth system tipping points, however, proved contentious and were deferred to a later session. Rifts emerged around the concept of “tipping points” and the format of the event, the ENB says.

The lengthy nature of discussions about expert meetings and workshops prompted a number of countries – and IPCC chair Skea – to articulate concerns around the general state of decision-making at the meeting, according to the ENB.

In a “progress report” session where the IPCC bureau updated members on its activities, Saudi Arabia voiced concern about briefings given by the IPCC to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is drawing up an advisory opinion on states’ climate-related obligations. Skea said that briefings had been limited to “purely scientific” information, the ENB says.

In a session which took place as talks overran into Saturday morning, a number of countries called for greater collaboration between the IPCC and its biodiversity-focused counterpart, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). However, others pointed to the difference between IPBES and IPCC review processes.

China host

The Hangzhou meeting marks the first time an IPCC bureau meeting has been held in China. It is also the first major climate conference hosted by the nation since the Tianjin talks organised by the UNFCCC in 2010 after negotiations faltered at the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen.

The 34-member IPCC bureau features one scientist from China – meteorologist Dr Zhang Xiaoye, who is co-chair of WG1.

Coverage of the meeting in national and local Chinese media focused largely on statements and comments from government officials, including national climate envoy Liu Zhenmin and spokespeople for the foreign ministry and the China Meteorological Association.

Officials stressed China’s “active” contribution to global climate action, but stopped short of characterising the nation as a climate leader.

For example, in comments captured by the Economic Observer, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian characterised China as a “fellow traveller” in the “green transformation” of the global south.

China Meteorological Administration director Chen Zhenlin said the nation stood willing to “cooperate extensively with all parties to jointly respond to extreme weather and climate risk challenges” and “jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind in the field of climate change”, according to Science and Technology Daily.

A number of Chinese publications – including the Paper, Xinhua and China Daily – reported on closing comments made by IPCC chair Jim Skea, which emphasised China’s critical role in international climate governance.

Yao Zhe, policy analyst at Greenpeace East Asia, says that hosting the conference allowed China to demonstrate “its support for climate science and its genuine interest in continuing international engagement on climate”. However, she tells Carbon Brief that she saw a “gap in expectations”:

“China sees itself mainly as a hospitable host, but others at the conference expect it to help build consensus and take a more progressive stance. I think this points to an emerging question in the broader landscape: The bar for China’s climate leadership will only rise as its influence on climate policy and cleantech markets grows. But when will China be ready to meet these expectations?”

Observers told Climate Home News they had witnessed a disconnect between Chinese officials’ public statements of support for cooperation on climate change and their positions in closed-door negotiations, which included a push to keep the next round of IPCC reports out of the next global stocktake.

On the last official day of the conference, Peru announced its offer to host the next session of the IPCC in the final quarter of this year. The exact date is still to be determined as there is “still some debate about where it sits in relation to COP30 – for example, before or after”, says Skea.

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Factcheck: No, Europe’s heatwaves are not being ‘caused’ by declining air pollution

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This summer has seen Europe suffer through a series of record-breaking heatwaves.

Amid widespread media coverage of the number of deaths and the influence of climate change, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported on new research with the incorrect headline: “Heatwaves caused by fall in pollution.”

The article was shared on social media by Richard Tice – deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party – along with a number of prominent rightwing commentators.

Tice claimed that “net stupid zero is contributing to rising temperatures, not helping”, adding that “we have been gaslit and lied to”.

GB News followed up with its own article, incorrectly headlined: “Britain’s scorching heatwaves caused by falling pollution levels, researchers find.”

Scientists tell Carbon Brief that the framing of heatwaves being “caused” by declining air pollution is “wrong”.

While a drop in pollution has reduced the cooling impact it has had in the past, the scientists say, Europe’s summer heatwaves are primarily becoming more extreme “as a result of greenhouse-gas-induced warming”.

Another scientist adds that “any attempt” to link this research to net-zero policies is “simply wrong”.

Fast warming

The extensive reporting around Europe’s heatwaves in recent months has often mentioned that Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent.

Europe has warmed rapidly since the 1980s

The new study in question aims to unpack why Europe’s summer temperatures are rising more quickly than other regions of the northern hemisphere’s mid and high latitudes.

The research – published in Geophysical Research Letters – explores the role of air pollution and, specifically, how it affects circulation patterns in the atmosphere.

(The study focuses on long-term trends in European summers and does not include the very recent heatwaves.)

Human-caused emissions of aerosols – tiny, light‑scattering particles produced mainly by burning fossil fuels – have long acted to “mask” global warming. This is largely because they absorb or reflect incoming sunlight and influence the formation and brightness of clouds.

To understand how the climate of Europe – or any region – is changing, scientists need to take into account a whole range of factors, says Prof Bjørn Samset, a research professor at Norway’s Center for International Climate Research (CICERO), who was not involved in the work.

This includes “greenhouse gases, aerosols, land-use change, natural variability and how they all interact”, he says, adding:

“The effects of air pollution on circulation, which is the topic here, has long been difficult to pin down.”

As European countries improved their air quality through the second half of the 20th century, the cooling effect of aerosols has gradually been removed.

This can boost heatwaves in two ways – directly, by letting more sunlight reach the land surface and, indirectly, by influencing the jet stream.

Using hundreds of simulations from nine climate models, the new study finds that a decline in aerosols is resulting in more frequent “quasi-stationary Rossby waves”.

Rossby waves are huge meanders in the jet stream. Occasionally, they become slow-moving – or “quasi-stationary” – which allows weather systems to get stuck over one region, leading to prolonged heatwaves.

These circulation changes have contributed to Europe’s rapidly warming summers.

However, while Europe’s heatwaves are being influenced by declining aerosols, it is “wrong” to say they are being “caused” by them, says Prof Erich Fischer, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich.

Headline in the Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2026.
Headline in the Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2026.

Fischer, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief:

“Heatwaves are caused by high-pressure systems and are now much more frequent and intense because they are happening in a climate that is much warmer than 100 years ago as a result of greenhouse-gas-induced warming.

“The paper shows that the greenhouse-gas-induced summer warming had been temporarily masked by air-polluting aerosols. The full extent for European summers only becomes visible now as the air-polluting aerosols have declined.”

Samset adds:

“Air pollution never causes or removes global warming, it only temporarily moderates it.”

Study lead author Dr Pedro Roldán‐Gómez, an associate researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputer Centre, is quoted in the Daily Telegraph saying that “most” of the “excess warming” in Europe, beyond that of comparable regions in the northern hemisphere, can be linked to declining aerosols.

But, earlier in the article, the newspaper interprets this as, simply, “most of the extra heat experienced in Britain and Europe” is down to air pollution.

GB News uses a similar phrasing, reporting that “much of the additional warming across Britain and western Europe since the 1980s is linked to the sharp decline in airborne particles known as aerosols”.

This is “misleading”, says Fischer, while Roldan-Gomez tells Carbon Brief that this is a “tricky point”, which “could lead to wrong interpretations if not properly explained”. He adds:

“The contribution of greenhouse gases is, in any case, the most important factor.”

Headline on GB News, 23 July 2026.
Headline on GB News, 23 July 2026.

Cleaner air

The Daily Telegraph’s article was seized upon by Reform’s Richard Tice to claim that “cleaner air” was causing higher temperatures, rather than CO2.

This continued his position – refuted by long-established climate science – that CO2 does not drive global warming.

Richard Tice on X on 23 July 2026

Tice also claimed in his post that net-zero policies are “contributing to rising temperatures”. Tice appears to be linking declining air pollution to a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Samset points out that net-zero became a goal “decades later” than the cumulative efforts to reduce air pollution since the 1980s and that it is “simply wrong” to link it to the study.

“The scientific community will keep working to understand how greenhouse gas warming and air pollution interact,” he says, but “nothing we do will change the fact that the consequences of global warming are due to human-induced CO2 emissions”.

Fischer adds:

“Let us not forget that cleaning up air-polluting aerosols is highly desirable. According to the World Health Organisation, 7 million people still die prematurely every year due to air pollution.”

Clean air legislation

Finally, the Daily Telegraph article and the study itself both attribute Europe’s declining air pollution from the 1980s onwards to the Montreal Protocol.

This is a “glaring error”, Samset says, and it is “surprising that it wasn’t picked up” in the peer-review process for the study. He explains:

“The Montreal Protocol did not deal with air pollution. It dealt with ozone-depleting gases and has been an extremely successful multi-national effort against environmental damage. “

Clean air legislation was already in place in many European countries by the time the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987, says Samset.

In response, Roldán‐Gómez says that while the protocol did not target aerosols specifically, it “boosted the clean air policies”.

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Access to finance ‘strengthens climate resilience’ among sub-Saharan women

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Empowering women through greater access to finance could “strengthen” households’ resilience to “climate shocks”, according to a new study.

Published in Climate Risk Management, it analyses the impact of financial access on “women-headed households” in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study finds that where women had formal financial access – such as through owning a bank account – households were more able to withstand short-term shocks.

It adds that “climate shocks”, such as extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change, can cause economic crises, which destabilise communities and households.

However, the authors say that in order to protect households from long-term climate vulnerabilities – including “droughts, floods and sea-level rise” – financial access would need to be paired with wider efforts to tackle gender inequality.

They add that the findings could have important implications for policy in sub-Saharan Africa, where many countries and households are vulnerable to climate disasters.

Financial inclusion

The study highlights that entrenched gender disparities mean many women still have unequal access to financial services in sub-Saharan Africa

For example, women are still less likely to have their own bank accounts and instead are often dependent on male relatives for access to finance.

The number of women with access to an account in the region had risen to 52% as of 2024, according to data from World Bank Group.

However, as shown in the chart below, the gap between men and women has also increased, rising from just under 5 percentage points in 2011 to 12 in 2024.

Chart showing that more sub-Saharan women now have bank accounts, but the gap to men has widened from 2011-2024
Share of population with bank accounts by gender over 2011-2024, %. Source: Global Findex Database, World Bank Group

Using survey data from Afrobarometer, the new study analyses 25,511 women-headed households across 37 sub-Saharan countries.

The authors use the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) framework to measure “financial inclusion”. This looks at factors such as having a bank account, owning a mobile phone and having internet access.

Francis Anaisie, a co-author on the study, tells Carbon Brief the researchers were motivated by the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). Anaisie, an economist at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, says the study specifically looked at SDGs five and 13, on gender equality and addressing climate issues. He adds:

“Financial inclusion is one of the key policy tools for empowering women or for empowerment. But as to whether this actually translates into better climate outcomes for women is not known or is limited; this study seeks to address that gap.”

The study finds households with higher levels of financial access for women had higher levels of women’s empowerment, when this is defined as the ability to make choices and have control over economic and social outcomes.

This was checked by cross-comparing financial access against different measures of women’s empowerment, such as financial security, voting rights and connection to communities.

In particular, the study found that “financially included” women had greater political and economic empowerment, such as financial security and voting rights. On some measures of social empowerment, however, the link was weaker – financial access alone was not enough to erase cultural and social barriers to gender equality.

Women and climate change

It has been well documented that women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than men.

Environmental shocks affect women disproportionately due to a range of factors. These include income disparities, higher rates of displacement and unequal access to land.

Financial inequality and barriers to economic resources, such as needing internet access to make digital payments, play a key role in climate vulnerability, says Tracy Kajumba. She is director for the Least Developed Countries initiative for Effective Adaptation and Resilience (LIFE-AR) interim secretariat at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Kajumba, who was not involved in the study, explains to Carbon Brief:

“Women are on the front line doing farming, planting, harvesting and these things that are all impacted [by climate change]. If they don’t have the income to invest either in drought-resistant crops or water-saving technologies, it becomes difficult for households to adapt.”

Calculating climate resilience

The new study measures the impact of financial inclusion on women’s empowerment and, in turn, on climate resilience.

It evaluates a household’s ability to withstand and recover from “shocks and stressors” by using a UN Food and Agriculture Organization metric for “resilience index measurement and analysis” (RIMA).

For example, questionnaires are used to gather information about households in certain areas. The data is then used, together with key indicators, to quantify a household’s resilience to food insecurity, climate variability and economic crisis, amongst other risks.

The 25,511 households surveyed across sub-Saharan Africa were found to be relatively resilient overall and had a high capacity to bounce back from climate shocks. However, they had much lower ability to adapt, in order to build protective capacity in advance of extreme events.

In addition, the study finds that women’s financial empowerment had a positive impact on a household’s ability to “absorb” a climate shock, suggesting that financial access is critical for responding to climate change.

Community garden and climate adaption project, focusing on women's empowerment, Niger.
Community garden and climate adaption project, focusing on women’s empowerment, Niger. Credit: Joerg Boethling / Alamy Stock Photo

Increased empowerment through financial access enables women to make decisions about planting crops, to access credit in emergencies and to buy or sell food at a better price, the study notes.

For example, it says increased financial access and women’s empowerment help households to deal with the immediate consequences of an extreme weather event, such as a drought. This could be through building community mutual-support networks and by enabling access to savings, to keep the household running.

Anaisie says the study shows women’s empowerment has a significant impact on climate resilience. He tells Carbon Brief:

“If we include women in the financial system, in the case of any climate issue they can save, they can be independent, they can rely on investment to absorb these shocks. This empowerment will help them to be more resilient to climate shocks…We can make progress because SDG goals are all about inclusiveness. It’s all about inclusive growth.”

However, the study notes that financial access does not necessarily create long-term change, which would make the household less vulnerable to extreme weather in the first place.

The authors suggest that lasting structural and cultural change is important for bringing about long-term resilience. They say that policies to address gender inequalities would help bring this about.

They say such policies could include gender-sensitive agricultural credit schemes, subsidised climate insurance for women farmers in drought-prone regions, joint land-titling programmes and quotas for women in local climate-adaptation committees.

Such policies would have helped women impacted by recent severe floods in Ghana to protect their savings, Anaisie explains. He tells Carbon Brief: 

“Women are engaged in economic activities, especially informal activities. They have resources and money, but when the flood came in, many women lost that. If they had access to insurance, this flood wouldn’t have cost them that much.

“So, if the government comes out with financial initiatives, training, civic education and gender-focused initiatives, leadership training, women will be empowered and this will translate into their resilience with regards to climate change.”

Addressing climate vulnerability in sub-Saharan Africa

The study could have policy implications for sub-Saharan Africa, a region particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The region faces increasingly extreme weather, heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods, as well as food scarcity and threats to crops.

The study suggests that policies to address structural and cultural barriers to women’s financial autonomy could be a key way to build climate resilience across the region.

However, it recognises that even where financial access is expanded, gender norms and cultural constraints continue to shape women’s social empowerment. This, in turn, affects their ability to adapt to climate change in the long term.

Ultimately, addressing structural inequalities is needed to minimise climate vulnerability, says Kajumba. She adds that supporting adaptation with financial access can allow households to absorb shocks without falling into poverty – and to rebuild after climate impacts.

Kajumba says that supporting adaptation with women’s financial access can allow households to absorb shocks without falling into poverty – and to rebuild after climate impacts. She adds:

“When they are supported [with] microloans, savings and all that, you will see change in income, change in households, change in health and education for the children as well.”

However, Kajumba notes that structural inequalities still “amplify” women’s vulnerability to climate impacts and make it harder for them to exercise agency and leadership. She adds:

“The tools that are being used are not always favourable for women…When we look at women in leadership and participation, you cannot lead or you cannot participate unless you have some level of income.”

The post Access to finance ‘strengthens climate resilience’ among sub-Saharan women appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Access to finance ‘strengthens climate resilience’ among sub-Saharan women

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State of the climate: Rapidly developing El Niño raises chance of record-warm 2026

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As 2026 passes its halfway point, the world is watching one of the most rapidly intensifying El Niño events in the modern record take shape in the tropical Pacific.

The developing El Niño is boosting expectations for global temperatures, both this year and next.

El Niño is the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that releases heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, temporarily raising global temperatures and reshaping rainfall and extreme weather around the world.

Carbon Brief’s “state of the climate” report in April gave 2026 a 19% chance of setting a new global temperature record.

That chance now stands at 35% – a near-doubling in four months – with virtually all of the change driven by ever-stronger El Niño forecasts.

The key findings from the first half of 2026 include:

  • The first six months of 2026 were the third-warmest start to a year on record – around 1.4C above pre-industrial levels – behind only 2024 and 2025. 
  • While the first few months of the year came in as the fourth or fifth warmest, both May and June were the second-warmest ever recorded as El Niño conditions took hold.
  • El Niño conditions arrived in April and reached the threshold for a “strong” event by June, when the Niño3.4 index reached 1.6C. Of the 667 model runs Carbon Brief examined, 91% project a peak later this year that is above the strongest El Niño in history.
  • The chance that 2026 beats 2024 as the warmest year on record has risen to 35%. Carbon Brief’s central estimate remains that 2026 will be the second-warmest year, at around 1.51C above pre-industrial levels.
  • Whether 2026 sets a record will depend on the dataset: the odds range from around two-in-three in NASA and Berkeley Earth data to around two-in-10 in ERA5 and one-in-10 in the JRA-3Q reanalyses.
  • June 2026 was western Europe’s hottest June on record, amid a heatwave that set hundreds of individual records. Nearly 9% of the world’s surface saw record June warmth.
  • The developing El Niño will have its largest impact on 2027, which Carbon Brief projects to be around 1.7C above pre-industrial levels – this would comfortably set a new record for the warmest year.
  • Arctic sea ice has spent 39 days of 2026 so far at, or below, record daily lows following its joint-lowest winter maximum in the satellite era.

Third-warmest start to a year

Carbon Brief analyses records from six different groups that report global surface temperatures: NASA GISTEMP, NOAA GlobalTemp, Hadley/UEA HadCRUT5, Berkeley Earth, Copernicus/ECMWF ERA5 and the JMA JRA-3Q reanalysis.

The first half of 2026 was the third warmest on record in every one of the six datasets, behind only 2024 and 2025. The figure below shows annual temperatures since 1970, along with the 2026 year-to-date average (January-June) for each group.

Chart showing that the first half of 2026 was the third warmest on record
Annual global average surface temperatures from the six groups (lines), along with 2026 temperatures so far (January-June, coloured dots). Note that HadCRUT5 and ERA5 dots reflect January-May, as their June values were not yet published. Chart by Carbon Brief.

January 2026 was only the fourth- or fifth-warmest January on record, as lingering weak La Niña conditions suppressed temperatures. Since then, each month has climbed the rankings.

La Niña is the cool phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It typically brings wetter conditions to Australia, Indonesia and equatorial South America and drier conditions to the southern US.

March was second-to-fourth warmest across datasets, April the third and both May and June were the second warmest ever recorded, behind only the corresponding months of 2024.

The chart below shows how June 2026 (thick red line) came in around 0.08C below the June record set in 2024 in the average of the six datasets.

Meanwhile, Copernicus reported that global sea surface temperatures over the ice-free oceans set a new June record.

Chart showing that 2026 saw the second-warmest June on record
Average global surface temperatures for each month from 1940 to June 2028 from six forecasting groups, with lines coloured by decade. Chart by Carbon Brief.

A record-breaking El Niño

ENSO is the largest source of year-to-year variability in global temperatures.

The most common way to assess the strength of an El Niño or La Niña event is by looking at the sea surface temperature anomaly in the “Niño3.4” region of the tropical Pacific.

El Niño and its sister La Niña occur when temperatures in the tropical Pacific are more than 0.5C (El Niño) or less than 0.5C (La Niña) below normal, where normal is defined by removing the effects of long-term climate change.

The thresholds for defining the strength of an El Niño or La Niña are above/below 1C for “moderate” events, 1.5C for “strong” events and 2C for “very strong” (or “super”) events.

After two years dominated by La Niña conditions, the tropical Pacific flipped decisively in April when the Niño3.4 index crossed the 0.5C El Niño threshold. It subsequently reached 1C in May and hit 1.6C in June, marking one of the fastest onsets in the observational record.

In the first few weeks of July, the index shot above 2C, significantly outpacing the speed at which any prior El Niño events developed.

Forecast models expect even more to come.

An analysis by Carbon Brief of the median of 667 model runs from 14 different modelling groups suggests that sea surface temperatures in theNiño3.4 region could peak at 3.59C between July and December.

More than 91% of runs predict the strongest El Niño event in the modern record. The previous record was set during the event of 2015-16, when temperatures peaked around 2.75C.

This is shown in the chart below, which features a histogram of the likelihood of different possible 2026 El Niño peaks across all the models on the top. The forest plot beneath shows the best estimate and range of outcomes predicted by each individual model.

Chart showing that El Niño is on track to set a new record in 2026
Top panel: Model-weighted distribution of each member’s peak Jul-Dec 2026 Niño3.4 anomaly (red bars), with the dotted yellow line indicating the weighted median (+3.6C) and the dotted blue line the prior record peak (2015-16, 2.75C). Bottom panel: median and 10th-90th percentile peak for each modelling group, with its typical peak month. The figure includes 667 model runs from 14 different modelling groups (from the CFS, NMME, C3S, CanSIPS and SINTEX-F systems). Chart by Carbon Brief.

The median forecast in every one of the 14 models suggests a peak that exceeds the 2C “super” El Niño threshold, with most models peaking in November or December.

Some caution here is warranted, however. Raw model Niño3.4 anomalies are measured against a fixed climatology. Because the entire tropical ocean has warmed due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, the models tend to overstate event strength relative to the historical record.

A cleaner comparison uses the relative Niño3.4 index (RONI), which subtracts the average tropical ocean warming.

This relative measure suggests the median forecast peak for El Niño in the latter half of 2026 is 3.1C. The prior record stands at a lower 2.69C, set in 1982-83.

Nevertheless, 77% of model runs still show a new record event occurring. This is shown in the chart below.

Chart showing that El Niño is on track to set a new record in 2026, even once warming is fully accounted for
Top panel: Model-weighted distribution of each member’s peak Jul-Dec 2026 RONI (red bars), with the dotted yellow line indicating the weighted median (+3.1C) and the dotted blue line the prior record peak (1982-83, 2.69C). Bottom panel: median and 10th-90th percentile peak for each modelling group, with its typical peak month. The figure includes 667 model runs from 14 different modelling groups (from the CFS, NMME, C3S, CanSIPS and SINTEX-F systems). Chart by Carbon Brief.

In summary, on both indexes, the central expectation is now for the strongest El Niño in the observational record.

Model forecasts made in the spring and early summer have historically shown some bias toward overpredicting event strength. However, forecasts made after the spring are considerably more reliable.

Widespread record warmth and a massive European heatwave

The map below shows the temperature anomaly for the first half of 2026 in the ERA5 dataset, relative to a 1981-2010 baseline period.

Global map showing global mean surface temperatures for January-June 2026 compared to a 1981-2010 baseline, using data from ERA5.
Global mean surface temperatures for January-June 2026 compared to a 1981-2010 baseline, using data from ERA5.

It shows how the largest warm anomalies were found across the Arctic – particularly north of Scandinavia and Svalbard – as well as western Europe, the western US, northern Mexico, central Asia, western China, eastern Russia and the Antarctic Peninsula region.

The developing El Niño is clearly visible as a tongue of warm anomalies stretching along the equatorial eastern Pacific. Only a few regions – central Canada, Alaska and parts of the Southern Ocean – saw temperatures below the 1981-2010 average.

Where 2026 ranks against history is even more striking. The map below shows where the period of January-June 2026 ranked among all 87 years in the ERA5 record, which stretches from 1940 to 2026. Grid cells marked in red saw temperatures in the first half of the year that were in the top-five warmest years.

Global map showing January-June 2026 per-gridcell ranks in ERA5.
January-June 2026 per-gridcell ranks in ERA5. 30% of the global surface saw a top-five warmest first half of the year; 7.1% saw record warmth. No areas (0.0%) saw top-five cold.

More than 30% of the global surface had a top-five warmest start to the year and 7.1% saw its warmest on record, including much of western Europe, the eastern equatorial Pacific and the seas around Japan.

Not a single grid cell had a top-five coolest start to the year. In June alone, 8.9% of the world’s surface saw record warmth for the month. This is illustrated in the map below, where grid cells marked in red saw temperatures that were in the top-five warmest years and grid cells in blue in the top-five coolest.

Global map showing June 2026 per-gridcell ranks in ERA5.
June 2026 per-gridcell ranks in ERA5.

The standout regional temperature event was a heatwave that struck Europe in late June.

Western Europe had its hottest June on record, recording an average temperature of 3.05C above the 1991-2020 average and beating the record set only a year earlier, according to Copernicus. A heat dome over 22-30 June broke 10 all-time national heat records and around 400 long-record station records.

France set a new June national record of 44.3C, while the UK broke its June record on three consecutive days, reaching 37.3C. The humid heat drove a death toll estimated in the thousands.

A separate heat dome also brought record June temperatures to parts of North America in late June.

On track to be second warmest, but a real chance at first

Carbon Brief’s updated projection for 2026 as a whole combines the observed January-June temperatures with the latest El Niño forecast. It uses a statistical model trained on the historical relationship between the first half of the year, ENSO conditions and annual temperatures observed over 1950-2025, excluding major volcanic eruption years.

Carbon Brief estimates that 2026 will be around 1.51C above pre-industrial levels, with a 90% range of 1.45C to 1.57C, shown by the yellow dot in the chart below.

This is up from 1.47C in the projection set out in April – and is notably more certain now that half the year has passed.

This central estimate would make 2026 the second-warmest year on record, just below 2024 (1.52C) and ahead of 2023 (1.43C) and 2025 (1.41C).

Chart showing that 2026 is on track to be the warmest or second-warmest year
Annual composite temperatures over 1970-2025, the 2026 year-to-date value (January-June, red dot), and Carbon Brief’s 2026 annual estimate (yellow dot with the 5th to 95th percentile range). Chart by Carbon Brief.

Carbon Brief’s modelling puts the chance that 2026 beats 2024 as the warmest year on record at 35%, using the average of the six different surface temperature records assessed. It puts the chance that 2026 comes in above 1.5C at around 63%.

If it does, 2026 would be the second calendar year – after 2024 – where warming averaged above 1.5C, in a further sign that the world is rapidly approaching the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit.

A single year above 1.5C does not by itself constitute a breach of the goal, which refers to the longer term average temperature of the planet. This is defined as the midpoint of a 20-year period by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

These likelihood of a record have been climbing rapidly throughout 2026.

Global temperatures so far throughout the year have run well below the record-setting levels of 2024 – around 0.13C cooler over the first six months.

On their own, temperatures observed so far in 2026 would make a new annual record unlikely.

However, rerunning the projection using only the data available at the end of each month since March – including both the year-to-date observations and the El Niño forecast issued that month – shows a shifting picture.

Using March data, 2026 had just a 7% chance of setting a new record. That rose to 16% in April, 24% in May, 27% in June and 35% using the latest data in mid-July.

This is shown in the chart below.

Chart showing that the chances of a record-warm 2026 have risen five-fold since March
Columns show the probability that 2026 exceeds 2024 as the warmest year on record, based on data available at the end of each month; the line shows the corresponding forecast of July-December ENSO conditions (relative Niño3.4 index). Chart by Carbon Brief.

Notably, this rise has little to do with observed temperatures. The year-to-date anomaly has actually drifted slightly down, from 1.41C after March to 1.39C after June.

Observed temperatures and fewer remaining months of the year contributed only around four percentage points of the 28-point rise in the likelihood; the remaining ~84% of the change comes from successive upward revisions to the El Niño forecast for late 2026.

However, whether 2026 ends up becoming the warmest year on record may end up depending on which dataset is used.

Running the same projection gives odds of a 2026 record of around two-in-three for Berkeley Earth (66%) and NASA GISTEMP (65%), but only 35% for HadCRUT5, 24% for NOAA and just 13% and 9% for the ERA5 and JRA-3Q reanalyses, respectively.

This is shown below.

Six charts showing observed annual temperatures for 2026 and the projections for each dataset
Observed annual temperatures since 1990, with each dataset’s own 2024 record (dashed line) and the 2026 projection (median, 25-75% bar and 5-95% whisker), with the per-dataset chance of a 2026 record in each panel’s title. Chart by Carbon Brief.

The divergence between projections mostly reflects how exceptional each dataset’s 2024 was.

The reanalysis approaches recorded a particularly warm 2024, leaving 2026 more ground to make up. GISTEMP and Berkeley, on the other hand, project 2026 modestly above their 2024 values.

A repeat of the situation in 2015 where different groups disagreed on record rankings is a real possibility. Headlines in January 2027 may hinge on choices of dataset.

2027 likely to be the warmest year in human history

The biggest climate story of the developing super El Niño may not be 2026 at all.

Global temperatures typically lag in the tropical Pacific by around three months. So, an El Niño event peaking in November and December 2026 will have its largest warming influence on 2027.

We saw this same pattern occur in 1997-98, 2015-16 and 2023-24 – where the year in which the El Niño developed was warm, but the following year was record-smashing.

Carbon Brief has extended its projection into 2027 by using the historical relationship between year-over-year temperature changes and ENSO conditions in the preceding autumn.

This yields a best estimate for 2027 of around 1.71C above pre-industrial levels, with a 90% range of 1.49C to 1.93C. This is shown by a yellow square on the chart below.

Chart showing that 2027 is likely to set a new global temperature record
Observed annual composite temperatures 1970-2025 and Carbon Brief’s projections for 2026 and 2027 (medians and 5th to 95th percentile ranges). Chart by Carbon Brief.

That would give 2027 a 92% chance of setting a new global temperature record and a 94% chance of exceeding 1.5C.

Taking 2026 and 2027 together, there is a 93% chance that at least one of the two years sets a new record.

The 2027 estimate is more uncertain than the 2026 one. As with 2026, there are uncertainties in the projection due to unknowns around exactly how strong the El Niño peak proves to be and how quickly it decays.

However, even the low end of the 2027 range would put it among the warmest years on record and the central estimate of 1.71C would exceed 2024 by nearly 0.2C.

If these projections bear out, the 2020s will have delivered new global temperature records in 2023, 2024 and 2027 – and potentially 2026 too – with a number of individual years well above the 1.5C threshold.

The long-term warming trend, driven by human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, has increased from around 0.18C per decade in the early 2000s to around 0.27C per decade today. El Niño and La Niña play a big role in determining which years along that rising path stand out as records.

Arctic sea ice at record lows

Arctic sea ice has spent much of 2026 in record-low territory.

Following the joint-lowest winter maximum in the satellite record in mid-March, daily extent has set or tied record lows for the date on 39 days so far this year, including extended spells in mid-to-late March and in early-to-mid June.

The most recent record-low days were in early July.

The chart below shows how Arctic sea ice in 2026 (dark red line) has been below the historical range (shaded red).

It also shows how Antarctic sea ice (dark blue), meanwhile, has remained below the 1979-2010 range for almost all of 2026 to date.

Chart showing that Arctic sea ice has been at a record low for most of 2026
Daily 2026 sea ice extent (bold lines) compared to the 1979-2010 historical range (shaded) and the record daily low from any prior year (dotted). Chart by Carbon Brief using data from NSIDC

As of mid-July, Arctic extent is a bit below the 1979-2010 historical range for the date, though it remains around 0.6m square kilometres (km2) larger than the record low for the date set during 2020’s exceptional summer melt season.

The trajectory over the coming two months will determine whether 2026 challenges 2012’s record September minimum. Early-summer conditions are a poor predictor of the September minimum, which depends heavily on summer weather.

Antarctic sea ice, meanwhile, is currently around 300,000km2 below the historical envelope, but has stayed well clear of the record lows set in 2023 and has not set any new daily records yet this year.

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