Source: Radio New Zealand
An ‘addiction’ to fossil fuels is driving climate change, the UN Secretary-General says – leading to ever-more severe weather including floods, droughts, and damaging storms. MUHAMMAD FAROOQ
Last year was among the hottest on record, as the world’s “addiction” to fossil fuels continues to drive global warming, new data shows.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed the average global temperature last year was 1.43°C warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.
2024 remains the hottest year on record, but 2025 was the second- or third-hottest, across the nine major global datasets.
The organisation said the global climate was more out of balance than at any other time in observed history, as greenhouse gas concentrations reached their highest levels in at least 800,000 years.
Most of the trapped heat was stored in the ocean, which is warming at an accelerating pace.
Together with melting sea ice and glaciers, that was driving global sea level rise – which projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show will continue for centuries.
Arctic sea-ice hit a record low in some satellite datasets last year.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the planet was being pushed beyond its limits.
“Every key climate indicator is flashing red.”
Current major conflicts were exposing another truth, Guterres said.
“Our addiction to fossil fuels is destabilising both the climate and global security.”
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, after the country was attacked by Israel and the US, has spiked oil and gas prices and prompted fears of global inflation.
The WMO’s State of the Climate report said increasingly severe weather, driven by climate change, was already affecting agricultural production and displacing people from their homes.
“The cascading and compounding impacts of multiple, sequential disasters severely limit the ability of communities to prepare for, recover from and adapt to shocks,” the report said.
That was especially true in places that were already experiencing conflict or other types of insecurity.
In New Zealand, inflation-adjusted data published by the Insurance Council showed that since 2019, insurance companies had paid out nearly $6 billion for extreme weather-related events in New Zealand.
That did not include pay-outs for severe weather at the beginning of this year, which killed six people in a landslide at Mount Maunganui, cut off entire communities, and closed major roads.
Victoria University professor of climate science James Renwick said the science of climate change had been understood for a century or more now.
“We know what we have to do to stop it,” he said. “Stop burning fossil fuels.”
Policymakers had been given that message for decades but emissions just kept increasing, he said.
He hoped the latest report “moves the dial”.
“The costs of inaction are already astronomical, let’s not make them overwhelming.”
Last week, the High Court in Wellington heard a case taken by two environmental NGOs against the government over its emissions reductions plans, which the organisations argued were risky and unlawful.
The Environmental Law Initiative and Lawyers for Climate Action told the court that the government broke the law when it dismantled dozens of climate policies soon after the election, before it had consulted the public.
The current plan relied overwhelmingly on offsetting emissions by planting forestry, rather than tackling emissions at their sources, the organisations said.
The court has reserved its decision.
Similar cases in the UK succeeded in forcing the government there to re-write its own emissions plans.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
LiveNews: https://livenews.co.nz/2026/03/23/2025-confirmed-as-one-of-the-hottest-years-on-record/