By Benadeta Mwaura - Reporter
Kenya, January 14, 2026 - The year 2025 has been confirmed as the third hottest year on record worldwide, according to data from leading climate scientists and monitoring agencies, underscoring the persistence of the planet’s long term warming trend and the growing challenge of climate change for nations like Kenya and beyond.
The European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which operates the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), reported that global average surface temperatures in 2025 were around 1.47 °C above preindustrial levels (the baseline period of 1850–1900), only marginally (0.01 °C) below the levels recorded in 2023 and 0.13 °C below the 2024 record.
Copernicus data show that the 2023–2025 period averaged more than 1.5 °C above preindustrial temperatures, marking the first time a three year span has surpassed this critical climate benchmark established in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Scientists warn this is an unmistakable signal that global warming is accelerating faster than many projections anticipated.
ECMWF Director General Florian Pappenberger said the findings highlight how urgent climate action must be: “Every year and every degree counts,” adding that sound science is critical to guide adaptation and mitigation strategies as temperatures climb. Heat highs in 2025 were not limited to any one region. While average land temperatures were slightly lower than the historic 2024 peak, the Antarctic saw its warmest year on record, and the Arctic experienced its second warmest.
Many other regions, including parts of the Pacific and Atlantic, observed annual temperatures far above long term averages. The year also brought exceptional heat stress, with nearly half of the global land surface seeing more days of intense heat (“feels like” temperatures of 32 °C or higher), a key driver of heat related health risks and mortality.
More from Kenya
Climate scientists attribute the extraordinary warmth to a combination of human induced greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels, and naturally variable ocean atmosphere patterns. While 2025 did not experience a strong El Niño event which tends to raise global temperatures, temperatures remained extremely high nearly everywhere, even under more neutral conditions.
Copernicus and partner climate datasets have also shown that the past 11 years (2015–2025) are the warmest in recorded history, reinforcing the trend that global warming is not a short lived anomaly but a persistent long term shift. The third hottest year on record has been linked to more frequent and intense heatwaves, wildfires, drought, flooding and tropical storms worldwide, stressing agriculture, water systems and public health.
Countries from Europe to Asia and Africa faced heat waves and climate extremes that affected lives, ecosystems and food systems, illustrating that global warming is not an abstract future crisis but a present reality. Scientists caution that without drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, the long term goal of holding warming well below 2 °C, and pursuing efforts for 1.5 °C, will be even harder to achieve, and the world may overshoot those targets sooner than expected.
