‘A new age of climate extremes’: Earth accumulating heat at accelerating rate

Increased heat will supercharge extreme weather events, warns UN agency as Cop31 climate summit begins

Heat is accumulating in Earth’s systems at an accelerating rate, the UN’s weather agency has reported as the Cop31 climate change summit begins in Turkey, with 2026 on track to be one of the four warmest years on record.

The imbalance between incoming energy from the sun and energy leaving Earth reached its highest level since monitoring began, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its State of the Global Climate update.