Belém to Copernicus, the climate challenge, Pg10

Key Highlights:

• The world breached the Paris Climate Pact’s 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold in 2024 and is likely to remain close in 2025.
• The three-year period from 2023 may be the first to exceed the 1.5 degrees warming limit.
• The decade closing by the end of 2025 will be the warmest since the second half of the 19th century.
• COP 30 negotiators in Belém, Brazil, agreed to triple funds in the next 10 years for climate resilience.
• The 1.5 degrees threshold was breached again in November 2025, according to Copernicus data.

Detailed Insights:

• Scientists view the Paris temperature target as a 30-year average, so exceeding it in a few years doesn't signal irreversible extreme weather.
• The warming in 2025 is concerning because it occurred despite the presence of La Niña, which typically cools global temperatures.
• Building resilience against climate impacts like floods and heat waves requires action at the local level.
• Global warming mitigation can occur at national, regional, or global levels, but adaptation requires localized strategies.
• Policymakers need to connect weather events, scientific reports like Copernicus, and outcomes from climate conferences to implement effective strategies.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Paris Climate Pact: An international agreement to limit global warming and strengthen countries’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change.
• El Niño: A climate pattern describing the unusual warming of surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
• La Niña: A climate pattern describing the unusual cooling of surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
• Mitigation: Actions taken to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases.