UN warns of more extreme heat on the horizon

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]If you think the climate is getting hotter now, the United Nations says the next 5 years could be even worse. It's warning of continued record-breaking heat, stronger droughts, and more extreme weather around the world. New projections show a 75% chance the world will exceed the key warming threshold of 1.5°C over the next 5 years. There's also an 86% chance that 1 year between now and 2030 will surpass 2024 as the hottest year on record.

[00:00:33]Now, certain parts of the world will get it worse than others. The Arctic is warming especially fast, more than three times the global average, and that's causing sea ice to shrink even further.

[00:00:44]The Amazon could become hotter and drier, increasing wildfire risks.

[00:00:49]Scientists say crossing the 1.5° threshold doesn't mean instant catastrophe, but every fraction of a degree brings more dangerous impacts, and that means more extreme weather, deadly heat waves, floods, droughts, crop damage, and intense wildfires.

[00:01:09]>> And the science is very clear that the window to keeping the global average temperature to 1.5° is closing rapidly, but it's important to note that this isn't kind of a fixed threshold, so every tenth of a degree of warming will come with more and more severe and worse impacts, and therefore we must kind of do what we can to limit the warming to as low as possible.