The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has published it’s State of the Global Climate 2025 on World Meteorological Day, with the theme ‘observing today to protect tomorrow’. A WMO Press Release provided a statement saying that ‘the Earth’s climate is more out of balance than at any time in observed history, as greenhouse gas concentrations drive continued warming of the atmosphere and ocean and melting of ice’.

Key messages and findings include:

• WMO State of Climate report confirms 2015-2025 hottest 11 years on record
• Earth’s energy imbalance is highest in sixty five-year record
• The ocean has been absorbing about eighteen times the annual human energy use each year for the past two decades
• Extreme weather impacts millions and costs billions
• These rapid and large-scale changes have occurred within a few decades but will have harmful repercussions for hundreds – and potentially thousands – of years.

For the first time, the report includes the Earth’s energy imbalance as one of the key climate indicators. The Earth’s energy balance measures the rate at which energy enters and leaves the Earth system. Under a stable climate, incoming energy from the sun is about the same as the amount of outgoing energy. However, increasing concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – to their highest level in at least 800,000 years have upset this equilibrium. The Earth’s energy imbalance has increased since its observational record began in 1960, particularly in the past 20 years. It reached a new high in 2025.

The report is accompanied by an interactive story map. It has a dedicated supplement  on extreme events, highlighting their cascading impacts, including on food insecurity and displacement. It includes a chapter on climate and health, showing how rising temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns and changes in extremes are affecting where and when health risks emerge, how severe they become and who is most exposed.

The State of the Global Climate report 2025 is based on scientific contributions from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, WMO Regional Climate Centres, United Nations partners and dozens of experts.

To read more information about the report, and to access the report in full you can follow this link to the WMO Press Release