2026 Resources for Media
Press release: Report launch: Download Insight figures Preview of figures: Video overview of the Insights:
Read more »2026 Acknowledgments
Acknowledgements The making of this report was led by Future Earth, The Earth League, and the World Climate Research Programme. We acknowledge the work of the following individuals in their respective capacities: EDITORIAL BOARD Ana Bastos – Leipzig University, GermanyWendy Broadgate – Future Earth Secretariat, SwedenDeliang Chen – Tsinghua University, ChinaLijing Cheng – Institute of […]
Read more »2026 References
Main references for each Insight For a full list of references for each insight, see Ospina et al. (under review) Ten New Insights in Climate Science 2026. Global Sustainability. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.23059603 Insight 1 Insight 2 Insight 3 Insight 4 Insight 5 Insight 6 Insight 7 Insight 8 Insight 9 Insight 10
Read more »Organised obstruction prevents effective climate policy through denial, delay, dilution, and distraction
Brulle, R. J. (2021). The Structure of Obstruction: Understanding Opposition to Climate Change Action in the United States. CSSN Primer. ↩
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Just energy transition threatened by geopolitical risks and fragmentation
Climate clubs can limit carbon leakage, but fairness shapes their feasibility and effectiveness
Advances in attribution science demonstrate individual emitters’ climate impacts
Callahan, C. W., & Mankin, J. S. (2025). Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability. Nature, 640(8060), 893–901. ↩
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The social cost of carbon has been severely underestimated
Bundled interventions can transform food systems for health and planetary stability
A larger overshoot of 1.5°C forces greater reliance on CO₂ removals and narrows adaptation options
Water gaps widen as continental drying accelerates
Chandanpurkar, H. A., et al. (2025). Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise. Science Advances, 11(30), eadx0298. ↩ Rosa, L., & Sangiorgio, M. (2025). Global water gaps under future warming levels. Nature Communications, 16(1), 1192. ↩ Chen, L., et al. (2025). Global increase in the occurrence and impact […]
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Sea level rise in a warming world: Acceleration, ice mass loss, and long-term commitment
Frederikse, T., et al. (2020). The causes of sea-level rise since 1900. Nature, 584(7821), 393–397; and Dangendorf, S., et al. (2024). Probabilistic reconstruction of sea-level changes and their causes since 1900. Earth System Science Data, 16(7), 3471–3494. ↩ Nauels, A., et al. (2025). Multi-century global and regional sea-level rise commitments from cumulative greenhouse gas emissions […]
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Ocean heat content keeps climbing as Earth’s energy imbalance grows
Bao, S., et al. (2026). Ocean heat content in 2025. Nature Reviews. Earth & Environment, 7, 206–208. ↩ von Schuckmann, K., et al. (2023). Heat stored in the Earth system 1960–2020: Where does the energy go? Earth System Science Data, 15(4), 1675–1709. ↩ Cheng, L., et al. (2024). IAPv4 ocean temperature and ocean heat content […]
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Introduction
Despite weak La Niña conditions last year, the global mean near-surface temperature in 2025 was approximately 1.43°C ± 0.13°C above pre-industrial levels, extending the unbroken streak of 2015–2025 as the eleven warmest years ever recorded, as confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).1 This atmospheric warming was reflected across the Earth system: upper-ocean heat content […]
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2026
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