As climate negotiators gathered in Antalya for COP31, the World Meteorological Organization reported that the first nine months of 2026 averaged 1.47 °C above pre-industrial levels. Ocean heat, sea level and the planet’s energy imbalance are all at records, and the developing El Niño is expected to become the strongest on record by December. For India, the report notes that about 146.5 million people were exposed to extreme heat in April alone.
The annual climate summit opened on Monday in the Turkish resort city of Antalya, with nearly 200 countries and more than 90,000 participants registered. On the same day, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published its State of the Climate Update for COP31, the scientific backdrop against which the next two weeks of negotiation will take place.
“El Niño and indeed the state of the global climate in 2026 gives new meaning to the phrase off the charts,” said Celeste Saulo, the WMO’s Secretary-General.
The temperature record
According to the WMO, the global mean near-surface temperature from January to September 2026 was 1.47 °C (±0.13 °C) above the 1850–1900 average, the standard pre-industrial baseline. For comparison:
- 2023: 1.46 °C.
- 2024: 1.55 °C, still the warmest year on record.
- 2025: 1.43 °C.
The years 2023 to 2026 are now the four warmest in the instrumental record, and each of the past 12 years ranks among the 12 warmest.
The 2026 figure covers only nine months. The El Niño now developing in the tropical Pacific typically adds 0.1–0.2 °C to the global annual average, mostly in the year after it peaks. The full-year figure for 2026 may therefore rise, and 2027 could challenge the record.
A single year above 1.5 °C does not mean the Paris Agreement limit has been breached. That limit refers to long-term averages over about two decades. But years at or near 1.5 °C are becoming routine.
What the planet is absorbing
The report’s most fundamental measure is Earth’s energy imbalance: the difference between the energy arriving from the Sun and the energy radiated back to space. The WMO says it is the highest since monitoring began in 1960. About 90% of the excess heat goes into the ocean. Preliminary data to July point to a tenth consecutive year of record ocean heat content.
Other indicators move in the same direction:
- Greenhouse gases (2025): carbon dioxide reached about 426.8 parts per million, 53% above pre-industrial levels. Methane was up 167% and nitrous oxide up 26%.
- Sea level: the global mean reached a record for the satellite era, which began in 1993.
- Glaciers: they lost more than 400 gigatonnes of ice in 2025, adding about 1 mm to sea level.
- Sea ice: Antarctic winter sea ice had its third-lowest maximum since 1979.
- Land water: in 2025, 42% of the assessed land area had below-normal water storage, against a long-term average of 25%.
El Niño: a risk multiplier
El Niño is the warm phase of a natural cycle in the tropical Pacific. The WMO says the current event has been strengthening since August and is expected to reach record strength by December, raising the risk of heat, drought and heavy rainfall into 2027.
“El Niño doesn’t add new heat to the planet,” Saulo said. Instead, it redistributes heat, releasing more of it from the ocean to the atmosphere. “We are supercharging our weather and El Niño will be a risk multiplier.”
For South Asia, El Niño years have historically been associated with weaker south-west monsoons and higher temperatures, although the relationship is not fixed: some El Niño years have brought normal rainfall. No IMD outlook for 2027 has been issued, and NSH draws no forecast from the WMO report.
What it means for India and its neighbours
The report records about 146.5 million people in India exposed to extreme heat in April 2026. In Nepal, a glacier collapse and flash flood in late August killed more than 1,300 people, according to the WMO.
Heat is increasingly treated as a health emergency in its own right. The WMO notes that the World Health Organization has, for the first time, classified the expected health effects of El Niño as an emergency. “Almost all heat deaths are actually preventable,” said Joy Shumake-Guillemot of the WMO–WHO climate and health office. Prevention depends on early warning, cooling and protective work practices. The report notes that 136 countries now have multi-hazard early-warning systems, up from 56 in 2015.
The view from Antalya
COP31 is co-led by Türkiye, which hosts the talks, and Australia, which leads the negotiations. On the first day, agenda disputes were settled after a request from African countries was withdrawn. Australia’s Chris Bowen promised that the summit’s cover decision would hold “no surprises”. Türkiye’s Murat Kurum said that families “must feel their impact in lower energy bills”.
The presidency’s headline ambition, known as “35-by-35”, is for electricity to supply 35% of final energy use worldwide by 2035, up from about a fifth today. It is an aspiration rather than a negotiated commitment. A coalition of climate-and-health funders announced a further US$150 million, bringing its total envelope to US$450 million.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said the world had “entered a new age of climate extremes”. Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, said progress was “nowhere near far enough or fair enough”, adding that “no COP is a silver bullet”.
India has said it will press for a dedicated work programme on climate finance from developed countries, under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and for voluntary adaptation indicators. It will resist new top-down mitigation targets. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav is due to join in the second week. No new Indian statement was made inside the conference during the reporting window.
