Syllabus:

GS3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

Context: 

Recently, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released its latest Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update (2025-2029) report to provide global annual to decadal predictions.

More on the news:

• The report highlights that global temperatures are expected to remain at or near record highs over the next five years.
• It warns of the increasing risk of crossing irreversible climate thresholds, with the Arctic warming more than three times the global average.

Temperature Projections (2025–2029)

• Global average near-surface temperatures was forecast to range between 1.2°C to 1.9°C above pre-industrial levels (1850–1900 baseline).

There is:

• An 86% chance that at least one year will exceed the 1.5°C threshold set by the Paris Agreement.
• 70% chance that the 5-year average warming for 2025-2029 will be more than 1.5 °C limit. This is up from 47% in last year’s report (for the 2024-2028 period) and up from 32% in the 2023 report for the 2023-2027 period.

• While long-term warming (averaged over decades) remains below this threshold, the data shows how close the world is to temporarily breaching a key planetary boundary.

• There is 80% chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029, would exceed 2024 as the warmest on record. 

• Also, though extremely unlikely, there was even a 1% chance of a single year exceeding 2°C of warming, a scenario that will have catastrophic consequences for ecosystems and human societies.

World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)

• The WMO is an intergovernmental organisation with a membership of 192 Member States and Territories.  

• It was established in March 1950 with the entry into force of its Convention replacing International Meteorological Congress (IMO) founded in Vienna International Meteorological Congress 1873. 

• The WMO convention is the treaty that established the WMO as a specialised agency of the United Nations. It was adopted in 1947 and entered into force in March 1950.
• India is a founding member of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

• It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

• Its primary function is to promote international cooperation in meteorology and related fields to improve weather forecasting, early warning systems, and disaster risk reduction. 

• World Meteorological Day was established in 1951 to mark the founding of the World Meteorological Organisation on 23 March 1950. 

UPSC MAINS PYQ:

Q. ‘Climate Change’ is a global problem. How will India be affected by climate change? How Himalayan and coastal states of India will be affected by climate change? (2017)