This is the authoritative annual physical record of the climate, and its 2025 message is stark precisely because 2025 was a “cooler” year. A shift from El Niño to La Niña pulled surface temperature just below 2024’s record, yet almost every other indicator, ocean heat, greenhouse gases, sea level, ice loss, still set or neared records.
The indicators
- Temperature. 2025 was about 1.43°C above the pre-industrial average, the second or third warmest on record; 2024 remains the warmest at 1.55°C. The past 11 years are the 11 warmest ever recorded.
- Greenhouse gases. CO₂ reached 423.9 ppm in 2024, a record and 152% of pre-industrial levels, with the largest annual jump since measurements began in 1957. Concentrations are the highest in at least 2 million years.
- Ocean heat. A new record in 2025, exceeding 2024; each of the past nine years set a record. The ocean has absorbed about 91% of the excess heat in the climate system.
- Sea level. About 11 cm higher than 1993, with the rate of rise nearly doubling, from 2.65 mm a year (1993–2011) to 4.75 mm a year (2012–2025).
- Ice. Glacier loss ranked among the five worst years on record; eight of the ten worst have occurred since 2016. Arctic sea ice hit its lowest annual maximum in the record.
Why it matters here
SDG 13 is one of the goals the SDG Report flags as going backwards, and this is the primary dataset behind that verdict. The value for SDGCounting is that these are measured, not modelled, indicators: a common, authoritative benchmark that lets the climate dimension of the Goals be tracked consistently year to year. The report also notes the human cost, warning that these changes feed food insecurity and displacement where hazards meet vulnerability.
Watch & read
- State of the Global Climate 2025, the full report (WMO).
- The SDG Report 2026, for SDG 13 in the wider stocktake.
Figures are as reported by WMO; some consolidated indicators (greenhouse gases) are for 2024, the latest finalized year.