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ISLAMABAD: Europe was the fastest-warming continent in 2025, with heatwaves reaching inside the Arctic Circle, ocean temperatures at an all-time high, and wildfires burning more land than ever before measured, according to a joint report released Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Rising temperatures across the continentThe European State of the Climate 2025 report found that at least 95% of the continent recorded above-average temperatures last year and has been warming at more than twice the global average rate since the 1980s.<img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/36bb727c-1826-4164-9fe2-1b8dd0acae03.png" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Date taken from: European State of the Climate 2025 report European land temperatures are now running approximately 2.4&deg;C above pre-industrial levels, the report said. &quot;Europe is the fastest-warming continent, and the impacts are already severe,&quot; said Florian Pappenberger, Director-General of the ECMWF, which co-produced the report. &quot;Almost the whole region has seen above-average annual temperatures.&quot; The WHO said in a statement accompanying the report that the continent experienced &quot;record heatwaves from the Mediterranean to the Arctic,&quot; alongside continued glacier retreat and rising sea surface temperatures. Oceans and glaciers in net lossAccording to the report summary, the annual sea surface temperature for the European ocean region was the highest on record in 2025, the fourth consecutive year that the record was broken. Glaciers across Europe recorded net mass loss, with Iceland experiencing its second-largest glacier loss on record.<img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/b11539b3-cff0-4bee-ac31-3b01a8228086.png" style="width: 475px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"> Date &nbsp;taken from: European State of the Climate 2025 report The Greenland Ice Sheet lost around 139 billion tonnes of ice, &quot;equivalent to losing 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools every single hour&quot;, said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which operates Copernicus. Wildfires and emissions surgeAround 1,034,000 hectares burned across Europe in 2025, an area larger than Cyprus, the report said, with wildfire emissions also reaching their highest recorded levels. Spain accounted for roughly half of those emissions, with fires across the Iberian Peninsula in August proving particularly destructive. Above-average spring rainfall had produced abundant vegetation that summer heat subsequently dried into fuel. Cyprus, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany each set national records for wildfire emissions. The report warned that peatland fires, which can smolder underground for months and release large stores of long-sequestered carbon when they burn, posed a compounding threat to both biodiversity and the climate. Biodiversity at riskThe report devoted significant attention this year to the accelerating link between climate change and biodiversity loss, finding that 2025&#39;s droughts, wildfires, and marine heatwaves caused measurable harm to species and habitats across marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The European Union&#39;s Biodiversity Strategy 2030, which includes legally binding targets to restore at least 20% of land and sea areas by 2030, had seen roughly half its recommended actions completed or underway by the end of 2025, the report said, but cautioned that progress must accelerate to keep pace with ecological loss. In a post on X, the agency described the findings as further evidence of accelerating climate change across the region, warning that the impacts are becoming increasingly severe and widespread.<div class="fr-embed"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=2049322923572236613&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmain.d1wrm1qseko1cp.amplifyapp.com%2Farticles%2F&sessionId=cbbdbe87abe73c43dad314e8dd9a05a25de16f68&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 672px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;"></iframe></div></div> The Copernicus Climate Change Service warned that if warming continues at its present rate, the Paris Agreement&#39;s 1.5&deg;C long-term limit could be breached before the end of this decade, more than a decade ahead of the timeline envisioned when the accord was signed.

The Greenlandia expedition's sailing boat 'Kamak' sails between icebergs released by glaciers around Milne Land in the Scoresby Sound Fjord, Eastern Greenland, on August 15, 2023. (AFP)

Climate

The European State of the Climate 2025 report found that at least 95% of the continent recorded above-average temperatures last year and has been warming at more than twice the global average rate since the 1980s.

Europe warming 'twice as fast as global average': Report

BRUSSELS: The planet logged its third hottest year on record in 2025, extending a run of unprecedented heat, with no relief expected in 2026, US researchers and EU climate monitors said on Wednesday. The last 11 years have now been the warmest ever recorded, with 2024 topping the podium and 2023 in second place, according to the EU&#39;s Copernicus Climate Change Service and Berkeley Earth, a California-based non-profit research organization. For the first time, global temperatures exceeded 1.5&deg;C relative to pre-industrial times on average over the last three years, Copernicus said in its annual report. &quot;The warming spike observed from 2023-2025 has been extreme, and suggests an acceleration in the rate of the Earth&#39;s warming,&quot; Berkeley Earth said in a separate report. The landmark 2015 Paris Agreement commits the world to limiting warming to well below 2&deg;C and pursuing efforts to hold it at 1.5&deg;C; a long-term target scientists say would help avoid the worst consequences of climate change. UN chief Antonio Guterres warned in October that breaching 1.5&deg;C was &quot;inevitable,&quot; but the world could limit this period of overshoot by cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. Copernicus said the 1.5&deg;C limit &quot;could be reached by the end of this decade &mdash; over a decade earlier than predicted.&quot; But efforts to contain global warming were dealt another setback last week when President Donald Trump said he would pull the United States, the world&#39;s second-biggest polluter after China, out of the bedrock UN climate treaty. Temperatures were 1.47&deg;C above pre-industrial times in 2025&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;just a fraction cooler than in 2023&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;following 1.6&deg;C in 2024, according to the EU climate monitor. Some 770 million people experienced record-warm annual conditions where they live, while no record-cold annual average was logged anywhere, according to Berkeley Earth. The Antarctic experienced its warmest year on record, while it was the second hottest in the Arctic, Copernicus said. An AFP analysis of Copernicus data last month found that Central Asia, the Sahel region, and northern Europe experienced their hottest year on record in 2025. 2026: Fourth-warmest?&nbsp;Berkeley and Copernicus both warned that 2026 would not break the trend. If the warming El Ni&ntilde;o weather phenomenon appears this year, &quot;this could make 2026 another record-breaking year,&quot; Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP. &quot;Temperatures are going up. So we are bound to see new records. Whether it will be 2026, 2027, or 2028 doesn&#39;t matter too much. The direction of travel is very, very clear,&quot; Buontempo said. Berkeley Earth said it expected this year to be similar to 2025, &quot;with the most likely outcome being approximately the fourth-warmest year since 1850.&quot; Emissions fight&nbsp;The reports come as efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of climate change, are stalling in developed countries. Emissions rose in the United States last year, snapping a two-year streak of declines, as bitter winters and the AI boom fuelled demand for energy, the Rhodium Group think tank said Tuesday. The pace of greenhouse gas emissions reductions slowed in Germany and France. &quot;While greenhouse gas emissions remain the dominant driver of global warming, the magnitude of this recent spike suggests additional factors have amplified recent warming beyond what we would expect from greenhouse gases and natural variability alone,&quot; said Berkeley Earth chief scientist Robert Rohde. The organization said international rules cutting sulfur in ship fuel since 2020 may have actually added to warming by reducing sulfur dioxide emissions, which form aerosols that reflect sunlight away from Earth.

A dog looks on as children fill up a jerrycan from a water puddle left by recent heavy flooding in the Hays region south of Yemen's Hodeidah province on August 28, 2024.(AFP)

Wildlife

 Scientists warn that a 1.5°C warming may be reached this decade, with 2026 likely remaining extremely warm as emissions cuts stall and El Nino risks persist globally.

2025 was third hottest year on record: EU, US experts

BREST: The world&#39;s oceans absorbed a record amount of heat in 2025, an international team of scientists said Friday, further priming conditions for sea level rise, violent storms, and coral death. The heat that has accumulated in the oceans last year increased by approximately 23 zettajoules &mdash;&nbsp;an amount equivalent to nearly four decades of global primary energy consumption. This finding &mdash; published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences &mdash; was the highest reading of any year since modern record keeping began in the early 1950s, researchers said. To derive these calculations, more than 50 scientists from 31 research institutions used multiple sources including a thousands-strong fleet of floating robots that track ocean changes to depths of 2,000 metres. Peering into the depths, rather than fluctuations at the surface, provides a better indicator of how oceans are responding to &quot;sustained pressure&quot; from humanity&#39;s emissions, said study co-author Karina von Schuckmann. &quot;The picture is clear: results for 2025 confirm that the ocean continues to warm,&quot; von Schuckmann, an oceanographer from French research institute Mercator Ocean International, told AFP. Oceans are a key regulator of Earth&#39;s climate because they soak up 90 percent of the excess heat in the atmosphere caused by humanity&#39;s release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. All that additional energy has a powerful knock-on effect. Warmer oceans increase moisture in the atmosphere, providing fuel for tropical cyclones and destructive rainfall. Hotter seas also directly contribute to sea level rise &mdash; water expands when it warms up &mdash; and make conditions unbearable for tropical reefs, whose corals perish during prolonged marine heatwaves. &quot;As long as the Earth continues to accumulate heat, ocean heat content will keep rising, sea level will rise and new records will be set,&quot; said von Schuckmann. Humanity&#39;s choice Ocean warming is not uniform, with some areas warming faster than others. The tropical oceans, the South Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the northern Indian Ocean, and the Southern Ocean were among waters that absorbed record amounts of heat in 2025. This occurred even as average sea surface temperatures decreased slightly in 2025 &mdash; yet still remained the third-highest value ever measured. This decrease is explained by the shift from a powerful, warming El Nino event in 2023&ndash;2024 to La Nina-type conditions generally associated with a temporary cooling of the ocean surface. In the long term, the rate of ocean warming is accelerating due to a sustained increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere caused mainly by burning fossil fuels. As long as global warming is not addressed and the amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere keeps rising, oceans will keep breaking records, the researchers said. &quot;The greatest uncertainty in the climate system is no longer the physics, but the choices humanity makes,&quot; said von Schuckmann. &quot;Rapid emission reductions can still limit future impacts and help safeguard a climate in which societies and ecosystems can thrive.

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The heat that has accumulated in the oceans last year increased by approximately 23 zettajoules — an amount equivalent to nearly four decades of global primary energy consumption.

Experts say oceans soaked up record heat levels in 2025

ISLAMABAD: The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved $250 million for a regional adaptation programme supporting nine countries, including Pakistan, to manage the rising risks of glacial melt and water stress linked to climate change. The initiative, titled &ldquo;Glaciers to Farms,&rdquo; will be implemented by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It aims to strengthen climate resilience in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, with an emphasis on the four primary glacier-fed basins &mdash; the Naryn, Pyanj, Kura, and Swat rivers &mdash; where temperature increases have accelerated snow and ice loss. The program aims to strengthen irrigation, watershed management, early warning systems, and data sharing to reduce the likelihood of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) and droughts.&nbsp; According to the ADB, over 13 million people will benefit directly from climate-resilient infrastructure and agricultural practices established through this initiative. &ldquo;Rapid glacial retreat is one of the most complex development challenges faced by our region,&rdquo; says Yasmin Siddiqi, ADB Director for Agriculture, Food, Nature, and Rural Development. &nbsp;&ldquo;We need practical, scalable, and science-based solutions to help communities adapt. With catalytic support from GCF, Glaciers to Farms will help move the region beyond fragmented projects toward systemic, long-term resilience that protects lives and livelihoods.&rdquo; According to the UNDP Pakistan project brief, the initiative in Pakistan expands on existing national efforts led by the Ministry of Climate Change, specifically the Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF-II) project, which was implemented in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The initiative was approved at the GCF&#39;s 43rd Board Meeting on Monday. Funding will be distributed primarily through grants, with an additional $3.25 billion in ADB investments expected over the next decade.

The initiative aims to address rapid glacial retreat by improving water systems, early warnings, and agriculture resilience across nine Asian countries, aiming to protect 13 million people from increasing flood and drought risks caused by climate change. 

Pakistan among nine nations to benefit from $250m glacial adaptation fund

GENEVA:&nbsp;Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, soaring to a level not seen in human civilization and &ldquo;turbo-charging&rdquo; the Earth&rsquo;s climate and causing more extreme weather, the United Nations weather agency said Wednesday. The World Meteorological Organization said in its latest bulletin on greenhouse gases, an annual study released ahead of the U.N.&rsquo;s annual climate conference, that C02 growth rates have now tripled since the 1960s, and reached levels not seen in at least 800,000 years. Emissions from burning coal, oil and gas, alongside more wildfires, have helped fan a &ldquo;vicious climate cycle,&quot; and people and industries continue to spew heat-trapping gases while the planet&rsquo;s oceans and forests lose their ability to absorb them, the WMO report said. The Geneva-based agency said the increase in the global average concentration of carbon dioxide from 2023 to 2024 amounted to the highest annual level of any one-year span since measurements began in 1957. Growth rates of CO2 have accelerated from an annual average increase of 2.4 parts per million per year in the decade from 2011 to 2020, to 3.5 ppm from 2023 to 2024, WMO said. &ldquo;The heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases is turbo-charging our climate and leading to more extreme weather,&quot; said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett in a statement. &ldquo;Reducing emissions is therefore essential not just for our climate but also for our economic security and community well-being.&rdquo; Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare called the new data &ldquo;alarming and worrying.&rdquo; Even though fossil fuel emissions were &ldquo;relatively flat&rdquo; last year, he said, the report appeared to show an accelerating increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, &ldquo;signaling a positive feedback from burning forests and warming oceans driven by record global temperatures.&rdquo; &quot;Let there be no mistake, this is a very clear warning sign that the world is heading into an extremely dangerous state &mdash; and this is driven by the continued expansion of fossil fuel development, globally,&quot; Hare said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m beginning to feel that this points to a slow-moving climate catastrophe unfolding in front of us.&rdquo; WMO called on policymakers to take more steps to help reduce emissions. While several governments have been pushing for further use of hydrocarbons like coal, oil and gas for energy production, some businesses and local governments have been mobilizing to fight global warming. Still, Hare said very few countries have made new climate commitments to come &ldquo;anywhere near dealing with the gravity of the climate crisis.&rdquo; The increase in 2024 is setting the planet on track for more long-term temperature increase, WMO said. It noted that concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide &mdash; other greenhouse gases caused by human activity &mdash; have also hit record levels. The report was bound to raise new doubts on the world&#39;s ability to hit the goal laid out in the 2015 Paris climate accord of keeping the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. United Nations climate chief, Simon Stiell, has said the Earth is now on track for 3 degrees Celsius.

A person checks his mobile phone as farmers burn crop residue after harvest near Bundelkhand expressway in India, on November 17, 2024. (AP)

UN warns of record CO2 levels driving extreme temperatures

HANOI: Lingering heavy rains from a former typhoon caused more flooding and landslides in Vietnam, raising the death toll to 19 in the country, with more missing. Rainfall topped 30 centimetres (nearly a foot) in parts of Vietnam over the past 24 hours, the national weather agency said on Tuesday. It warned that heavy downpours would continue. The prolonged rain triggered flash floods and landslides that cut off roads and isolated communities from the northern mountains of Son La and Lao Cai provinces to central Nghe An province. Rivers swollen by downpours and dam discharges have caused widespread flooding and landslides in the north. The Thao River in Yen Bai rose well above emergency levels overnight, sending water up to a meter deep (3 feet) into homes and forcing evacuations. Many streets in the capital, Hanoi, were flooded, and authorities warned that people close to the Red River, which passes through the city, should take precautions. State media said Tuesday that authorities were still searching for 13 missing people, including eight fishermen. Bualoi had already caused at least 20 deaths in the Philippines since Friday. It made landfall in Vietnam early Monday, then lingered, which increased the danger. Global warming is making storms like these stronger and wetter, according to experts, since warmer oceans provide tropical storms with more fuel, driving more intense winds, heavier rainfall and shifting precipitation patterns across East Asia.

Natural Disaster

Heavy rains from former Typhoon Bualoi caused severe flooding and landslides across Vietnam, raising the death toll to 19, with 13 still missing. Authorities warn of continued downpours and rising river levels.

Articles tagged with "Global warming"

Europe warming 'twice as fast as global average': Report

2025 was third hottest year on record: EU, US experts

Experts say oceans soaked up record heat levels in 2025

Pakistan among nine nations to benefit from $250m glacial adaptation fund

UN warns of record CO2 levels driving extreme temperatures

Typhoon Bualoi aftermath: flooding and landslides kill 19 in Vietnam