Last year was the hottest year on record, according to scientists, as global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era for the first time.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, governments across the world promised to prevent the average global temperature rise from exceeding this threshold.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed the temperature rise on Friday, having reviewed data provided by scientists from the US, UK, EU and Japan.
“Global heating is a cold, hard fact,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.
“There’s still time to avoid the worst of climate catastrophe. But leaders must act—now.”
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said that climate change, as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, is pushing the planet’s temperature to levels never experienced by modern humans.
The earth’s average temperature last year was 1.6°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, according to the C3S. The WMO says the last ten years are also the hottest ten years on record.
EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the data show that action to mitigate climate change must be prioritised.
“It is extremely complicated, in a very difficult geopolitical setting, but we don’t have an alternative,” he told Reuters.