'This is all bad news for the planet'
The year 2015 is shaping up to be the hottest on record, the UN's weather agency said yesterday, days before a UN summit opens in Paris to craft a climate rescue pact.
More than 145 world leaders are set to gather in Paris from Monday for a conference seeking to cap average global warming at two degrees Celsius above mid-19th century levels.
Data until the end of October showed this year's temperatures running "well above" any previous 12 month period. The researchers say the five year period from 2011 to 2015 was also the warmest on record.
The rise, they state, was due to a combination of a strong El Nino and human-induced global warming. The WMO said their preliminary estimate, based on data from January to October, showed that the global average surface temperature for 2015 was 0.73 degrees C above the 1961-1990 average.
The WMO said that levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached new highs.
"The state of the global climate in 2015 will make history for a number of reasons," said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud.
"2015 is likely to be the hottest year on record, with ocean surface temperatures at the highest level since measurements began. It is probable that the 1C threshold will be crossed.
"This is all bad news for the planet."
As well as warming the land, much of the heat has gone into the oceans. The WMO said the waters have been absorbing more than 90% of the energy that has accumulated in the climate system from human emissions of greenhouse gases.
Meanwhile, anti-poverty agency Oxfam yesterday said developing countries could face a bill of $790 billion per year by 2050 for adapting to climate change.
Carbon-curbing pledges which form the cornerstone of the climate rescue pact are insufficient, it said in a report. Current commitments from some 170 nations put the world on track to warm by three degrees Celsius over mid-19th century levels -- a full 1 C higher than the United Nations target.
Unless much more is done, developing nations will end up spending about 50 percent more on climate adaptation by mid-century than they would under a 2 C scenario, the report said.
Amid these grim reports, German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday said the international community must secure a binding deal against climate change at the Paris summit.
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