<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/climate-change" rel="" target="_blank" title="Climate change"><span>Climate change</span></a><span> worsened by human behaviour made 2025 one of the three hottest years on record, scientists said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It was also the first time that the three-year temperature average broke through the threshold set in the 2015 Paris Agreement of limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Experts say that keeping the Earth below that limit could save lives and prevent catastrophic environmental destruction around the globe.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/queensland-floods-weather-australia/0aa6a6c7-7bb8-4238-81fa-3a9c6ced3e19" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>New warnings for life-threatening flash floods as Queensland smashed by rain</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The analysis from World </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/weather-news" rel="" target="_blank" title="Weather"><span>Weather</span></a><span> Attribution researchers came after a year when people around the world were slammed by the dangerous extremes brought on by a warming planet.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Temperatures remained high despite the presence of a </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/la-nina" rel="" target="_blank" title="La Nina"><span>La Nina</span></a><span>, the occasional natural cooling of Pacific Ocean waters that influences weather worldwide.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Researchers cited the continued burning of fossil fuels — oil, gas and coal — that send planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/2025-was-one-of-three-hottest-years-on-record-world-climate-change/a07f7f2a-1638-4912-8381-303ef3af086b" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>“If we don’t stop burning fossil fuels very, very, quickly, very soon, it will be very hard to keep that goal” of warming, Friederike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution and an Imperial College London climate scientist, told The Associated Press. “The science is increasingly clear.”</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><span>Extremes in 2025</span></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Extreme weather events kill thousands of people and cost billions of dollars in damage annually.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>WWA scientists identified 157 extreme weather events as most severe in 2025, meaning they met criteria such as causing more than 100 deaths, affecting more than half an area’s population or having a state of emergency declared.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Of those, they closely analysed 22.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That included dangerous heat waves, which the WWA said were the world's deadliest extreme weather events in 2025.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The researchers said some of the heat waves they studied in 2025 were 10 times more likely than they would have been a decade ago due to climate change.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/tropical-cyclone-haley-western-australia-braces-for-category-four-weather-system/465c0dec-8d81-493c-82a3-c888a572985a" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>Western Australia braces for Tropical Cyclone Hayley</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>“The heat waves we have observed this year are quite common events in our climate today, but they would have been almost impossible to occur without human-induced climate change,” Otto said. “It makes a huge difference.”</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Meanwhile, prolonged drought contributed to wildfires that scorched Greece and Turkey.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Torrential rains and flooding in Mexico killed dozens of people and left many more missing.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Super Typhoon Fung-wong slammed the Philippines, forcing more than a million people to evacuate. Monsoon rains battered India with floods and landslides.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The WWA said the increasingly frequent and severe extremes threatened the ability of millions of people across the globe to respond and adapt to those events with enough warning, time and resources, what the scientists call “limits of adaptation.”</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The report pointed to Hurricane Melissa as an example: The storm intensified so quickly that it made forecasting and planning more difficult, and pummeled Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti so severely that it left the small island nations unable to respond to and handle its extreme losses and damage.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><span>Global climate negotiations sputter out</span></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>This year's United Nations climate talks in </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/brazil" rel="" target="_blank" title="Brazil"><span>Brazil</span></a><span> in November ended without any explicit plan to transition away from fossil fuels, and though more money was pledged to help countries adapt to climate change, they will take more time to do it.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Officials, scientists, and analysts have conceded that Earth’s warming will overshoot 1.5 degrees Celsius, though some say reversing that trend remains possible.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Yet different nations are seeing varying levels of progress.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/china" rel="" target="_blank" title="China"><span>China</span></a><span> is rapidly deploying renewable energies including solar and wind power — but it is also continuing to invest in coal.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Though increasingly frequent extreme weather has spurred calls for climate action across </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/europe" rel="" target="_blank" title="Europe"><span>Europe</span></a><span>, some nations say that limits economic growth.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/bondi-beach-terror-attack-prime-minister-anthony-albanese-afp-commissioner-krissy-barrett-update-investigation/786a1481-b54f-43de-9220-701acf59acf8" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>CCTV of alleged Bondi gunmen in Philippines under AFP review</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Meanwhile, in the US, the </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/donald-trump" rel="" target="_blank" title="Trump"><span>Trump</span></a><span> administration has steered the nation away from clean-energy policy in favor of measures that support coal, oil and gas.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>“The geopolitical weather is very cloudy this year with a lot of policymakers very clearly making policies for the interest of the fossil fuel industry rather than for the populations of their countries," Otto said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>“And we have a huge amount of mis- and disinformation that people have to deal with.”</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Andrew Kruczkiewicz, a senior researcher at the Columbia University Climate School who wasn't involved in the WWA work, said places are seeing disasters they aren't used to, extreme events are intensifying faster and they are becoming more complex.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That requires earlier warnings and new approaches to response and recovery, he said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>“On a global scale, progress is being made," he added, "but we must do more.”</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f"><em><strong><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></strong></em></a><em><strong><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. 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