Context: Recently, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published its annual report "Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update" to provide global annual and decadal climate predictions.

Key highlights

• WMO warns 80% chance Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal breached in next 5 years, with 86% chance of setting new temperature record. COP29 in Baku to focus on new financial goal.

• This include an 80% probability that the annual average global temperature will exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year between 2024-2028.

• There is an 86% chance that at least one of those years will be warmer than 2023, currently the warmest year on record.

• The report also predicts potential reductions in sea-ice concentration in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, and Sea of Okhotsk.

• The warning came even as Baku in Azerbaijan — on the coast of the Caspian Sea and a major producer of crude oil and natural gas — is preparing to host thousands of delegates from all over the world this November for the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29). 

• The agenda of the UN climate meeting (COP29) at Baku is to negotiate a new financial goal to be set from the floor of USD 100 billion for the post-2025 period. This is expected to help developing countries transition to a low-carbon future.

• The Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5°C, to avoid or reduce adverse impacts and related losses and damages.

• There is a 47% likelihood that the global temperature averaged over the entire five-year (2024-2028) period will exceed 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era, says the WMO Global Annual to Decadal Update – up from 32% from last year’s report for the 2023-2027 period.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

• It is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 193 Member States and Territories.

• India is a member of WMO.

• It originated from the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), which was established after the 1873 Vienna International Meteorological Congress.

• Established by the ratification of the WMO Convention on 23rd March 1950, WMO became the specialized agency of the United Nations for meteorology (weather and climate), operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences.'

• WMO is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.