As COP30 Opens: Urgent Climate-Science Findings — Faster Warming, Rising Seas, and Growing Risks

BELEM, Brazil — As world delegates gather for COP30, recent climate-science updates show the crisis accelerating: temperatures, sea levels, heat extremes and wildfire impacts are rising faster than in past decades, while risks of irreversible ecosystem shifts and threats to climate monitoring are growing.

WARMER, FASTER

New studies that update the baselines used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show global temperatures not only rising but doing so more rapidly than before. Records were set in 2023 and 2024 and at points in 2025. The latest research indicates the global average temperature is increasing at roughly 0.27°C per decade — about 50% faster than the ~0.2°C-per-decade pace typical of the 1990s and 2000s.

Sea level rise has accelerated as well, averaging about 4.5 mm per year over the last decade versus roughly 1.85 mm per year when measured across the long term since 1900. At current rates, the world is likely to cross the 1.5°C warming threshold around 2030, a level many scientists warn could trigger catastrophic and largely irreversible impacts. Global temperatures have already risen about 1.3–1.4°C since the pre-industrial era, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

TIPPING POINTS

Several ecosystems are approaching or experiencing near‑irreversible change. Warm‑water corals are suffering virtually irreversible die‑offs following repeated marine heatwaves — an example of a climate "tipping point," where an ecosystem shifts into a different state.

Researchers warned in October that rapid deforestation combined with warming past 1.5°C could push the Amazon toward large‑scale dieback and a transition to more open ecosystems such as savannah, earlier than previously projected. Meltwater from Greenland's thawing ice sheet could also hasten weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the ocean current that moderates European winters.

In Antarctica, declining sea ice exposes darker ocean water that absorbs more solar radiation, amplifying regional warming and threatening phytoplankton growth that helps remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

LAND ON FIRE

Wildfires remain widespread and destructive. The State of Wildfires report, compiled by weather agencies and universities, counted roughly 3.7 million square kilometers (about 1.4 million square miles) burned between March 2024 and February 2025 — an area comparable to the size of India and Norway combined. Although that area was slightly below the two‑decade average, the fires emitted more CO2 than in previous years because they burned more carbon‑dense forests.

DEADLY HEAT

Heat extremes are already a major health and economic threat. U.N. health and weather agencies estimate roughly half the world's population is affected by dangerous heat conditions, and that worker productivity falls about 2–3% for every degree Celsius above 20°C. A study in The Lancet estimated global economic losses from reduced productivity exceeded $1 trillion last year.

At a regional level, researchers continue to quantify heat‑related deaths. One Imperial College London analysis estimated more than 24,400 heat‑related deaths this summer across about 30% of Europe's population, attributing up to 70% of those deaths to climate‑driven warming. For last year's record‑hot European summer, another study estimated roughly 62,700 heat‑related deaths across 32 countries.

SCIENCE UNDER ATTACK — AND SUPPORTED

Climate and weather monitoring face political and budgetary pressures in some places. The U.S. administration's 2026 budget request, which requires Congressional approval, proposed dramatic cuts to Earth‑science programs — halving NASA Earth Science funding to around $1 billion and reducing NOAA's budget to about $4.5 billion while proposing elimination of NOAA's climate research arm. Many scientists warn such cuts would hamper long‑standing U.S. leadership in observations and modeling.

By contrast, public investment in climate and science research is increasing in other jurisdictions: China, the United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union have reported record or growing research budgets, and the EU recently opened real‑time weather monitoring data to public access.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR COP30

The latest findings underscore the urgency at COP30: faster warming and rising seas narrow the window for effective action, increase the likelihood of cascading ecological tipping points, and heighten the need for robust global monitoring and adaptation funding. Decisions made by governments now will shape how badly communities and ecosystems are affected in the decades ahead.

Bottom line: The science is clear and accelerating — mitigation, adaptation and sustained investment in climate monitoring are more critical than ever.