UN weather agency says 2023 is hottest year on record – with more extremes ahead

Fire consumes an area next to the Transpantaneira road in the Pantanal wetlands near Pocone, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, on November 15 (Andre Penner/AP)

This year is all but certain to be the hottest on record, the UN weather agency said as it warned that worrying trends suggest increasing floods, wildfires, glacier melt and heatwaves in the future.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said the average temperature for the year is up some 1.4C from pre-industrial times – a mere one-tenth of a degree under a target limit for the end of the century as laid out by the Paris climate accord in 2015.