50:50 chance of global temperature reaching 1.5°C threshold in next 5 years

The Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update has suggested that there is a 50-50 chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level for at least one of the next five years.
The new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that the likelihood is increasing with time. It points to a 93 per cent likelihood of at least one year between 2022 and 2026 becoming the warmest on record. This would dislodge 2016 from the top ranking.
The chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C has risen steadily since 2015, when it was close to zero. For the years between 2017 and 2021, there was a 10 per cent chance of exceedance. That probability has increased to nearly 50 per cent for the 2022-2026 period.
The chance of the five-year average being higher than the last five years (2017-2021) is also 93 per cent, according to the update provided by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, the WMO’s lead centre for such predictions.
The annual update harnesses the expertise of internationally acclaimed climate scientists and the best prediction systems from leading climate centres around the world to produce actionable information for decision-makers.
WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas has advised, “This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – that we are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and, indeed, the entire planet.”
He added, “For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise. And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise, and our weather will become more extreme. Arctic warming is disproportionately high, and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us.”
The Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, to limit the global temperature increase in this century to two °C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5°C.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5°C than at present, but lower than at 2°C.
Dr Leon Hermanson of the Met Office, who led the report, has remarked, “Our latest climate predictions show that continued global temperature rise will continue, with an even chance that one of the years between 2022 and 2026 will exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. A single year of exceedance above 1.5 °C does not mean we have breached the iconic threshold of the Paris Agreement, but it does reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5°C could be exceeded for an extended period.”
In 2021, the global average temperature was 1.1°C above the pre-industrial baseline, according to the provisional WMO Report on the State of the Global Climate. The final State of the Global Climate report for 2021 will be released on 18 May. (G12)