The World Meteorological Organization published its annual State of the Global Climate report on Monday. The headline finding: the Earth's "energy imbalance" — the gap between heat energy trapped by the atmosphere and heat energy released — reached a new record high in 2025. The planet is absorbing more energy than it can shed, and the rate at which this is happening is increasing.
UN Secretary General António Guterres responded: "Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits. Every key climate indicator is flashing red."
The Numbers
The most significant metric in the report is the energy imbalance itself. More than 90% of the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases goes into the oceans. Ocean heat in the upper 2 kilometers reached an all-time high in 2025, and the rate of ocean warming over the past two decades is more than double the rate observed during the late 20th century.
The consequences of that ocean heat are not abstract: warmer oceans intensify storms, accelerate sea-level rise, harm marine ecosystems, and feed back into atmospheric temperatures. The WMO's Prof Celeste Saulo: "Human activities are increasingly disrupting the natural equilibrium and we will live with these consequences for hundreds and thousands of years."
El Niño: What's Coming
Long-term forecasts strongly suggest an El Niño phase will form in the second half of 2026. El Niño is a natural warming pattern in the Pacific Ocean that, layered on top of the background human-caused warming trend, typically pushes global temperatures to new heights.
WMO's Dr. John Kennedy: "If we transition to El Niño we will see an increase in global temperature again, and potentially to new records."
The last major El Niño cycle (2023-2024) contributed to 2024 being the hottest year in recorded history. If a new El Niño arrives later this year, scientists expect 2027 could set another record — the third in four years.
The Iran War Connection
The WMO report and Guterres' response did not explicitly reference the Iran war, but the connection is direct. The war has increased global fossil fuel consumption in several ways simultaneously:
Rerouted shipping: Tankers avoiding the Strait of Hormuz are traveling longer routes around Africa, burning more fuel per voyage. Similar rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope during Houthi Red Sea attacks in 2023-2024 added an estimated 10-14 days per transit.
Strategic reserve releases: IEA member countries have released 400 million barrels of oil — these are being burned, adding to emissions, not reducing them.
Destroyed infrastructure: Oil fires and destroyed refineries in Iran have released significant quantities of particulate matter and greenhouse gases — not yet quantified in any public report.
Policy regression: The IEA's Fatih Birol, the same official calling this "the greatest energy security threat in history," also said the crisis would boost investment in renewables and nuclear. But in the short term, the political priority is securing fossil fuel supply — not reducing consumption. The US has eased sanctions on both Iranian and Russian oil. Speed limits and four-day weeks are demand reduction measures; they are not decarbonization.
Guterres' call to "deliver climate security, energy security and national security" through renewable energy is a direct response to the Iran war dynamic — but it is a multi-decade transition argument being made in the middle of a crisis that is being fought over weeks.
The Ice Data
The WMO report includes glacial and polar ice data:
- The world's glaciers had one of their five worst years on record in 2024/25 (provisional data)
- Sea ice at both poles was at or near record lows throughout most of 2025
- The combination of glacial melt and thermal expansion of warmer water is accelerating sea-level rise
Sea-level rise directly affects hundreds of millions of people in coastal cities and low-lying island nations. The WMO estimates that sea levels have risen by approximately 10cm since 2000 and the rate is accelerating.
What Happens Next
The WMO report is a baseline document — it establishes where the climate stands as of 2025. What happens next depends on emissions trajectories that are currently being pushed in the wrong direction by the Iran war's energy dynamics.
The World Weather Attribution group published analysis on Friday showing that the intensity of recent extreme heat events would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change. That language — "virtually impossible" — is the strongest scientific attribution level.
El Niño is expected by late 2026. If it arrives as forecast, temperatures in 2027 will likely set new records. The Iran war will have ended or continued by then. In either case, the emissions from the war itself, the rerouted shipping, the reserve releases, and the policy regression will already be in the atmosphere — where CO2 remains for centuries.
The energy imbalance is at a record high. El Niño is coming. The war is increasing emissions, not reducing them. These timelines operate on different scales but they are not separate problems.