The planet just endured its hottest 12-month period on record, with global average temperatures soaring 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to data released today by the UK Met Office. This is not a statistical blip. It is the physical manifestation of an energy imbalance driven by greenhouse gas emissions. The Met Office’s HadCRUT5 dataset, a gold standard in climate science, confirms that every month since June 2023 has broken the previous temperature record for that month. We are now living in a climate regime that Earth has not experienced in over 100,000 years.
For context, the last time carbon dioxide levels were this high, sea levels were 6 to 9 metres higher and palm trees grew in Antarctica. The current trajectory is not a slow creep; it is a lurch. The Met Office’s projections indicate a 50% chance that global temperatures will exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels within the next five years. That threshold, enshrined in the Paris Agreement, was meant to be a guardrail. We are now accelerating past it.
The data demands action. But action requires more than rhetoric. It requires a fundamental restructuring of our energy systems, our agriculture, and our economies. The Met Office report coincides with a new analysis from the International Energy Agency showing that global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by 1.1% last year, driven by a rebound in coal use in Asia. This is the definition of a crisis: we know the problem, we have the solutions, and yet we are moving in the wrong direction.
Consider the physics. The Earth’s energy budget is out of balance. The planet is absorbing about 0.9 watts per square metre more than it radiates back to space. That might sound small, but multiplied over the entire surface area of the Earth, it is equivalent to the energy of 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs every day. That energy is melting ice sheets, warming oceans, and supercharging extreme weather events.
We are already seeing the consequences. The global average sea surface temperature hit 21.1°C in April, the highest on record. Antarctica’s sea ice extent reached a record low for this time of year. The Amazon rainforest is emitting more carbon than it absorbs. These are not isolated phenomena; they are interconnected feedback loops that risk accelerating warming beyond our control.
The UK government has used the Met Office data to announce new emissions targets: a 78% reduction by 2035, net zero by 2050. But targets are not actions. The gap between political ambition and physical reality is widening. We need to deploy renewable energy at a rate five times faster than current levels. We need to electrify transport and heating. We need to develop carbon removal technologies at scale. And we need to do all of this while managing the inevitable social and economic disruptions of a changing climate.
There are some bright spots. The cost of solar photovoltaic panels has fallen by 90% in the last decade; onshore wind is now among the cheapest sources of electricity in many regions. Electric vehicle sales grew by 35% last year. But these trends are not moving fast enough to prevent overshoot of the 1.5°C target.
The Met Office’s dataset is a tool, not a prophecy. It tells us where we are, not where we are going. The future is still unwritten. But the window of opportunity is closing. The physical laws of the universe do not care about our intentions. They only respond to our actions. And right now, those actions are insufficient.
This is not a time for despair. It is a time for calm urgency. We have the science. We have the technology. What we need is the collective will to transform our world before the planet transforms it for us.
