Recent research suggests that global warming is not merely continuing, but accelerating. I have been writing about this for 2 years now when it became clear to me, we would never meet the Paris targets. Sorry in advance but warming is now baked in.
A study reported in Geophysical Research Letters estimates that since 2015 the Earth has warmed at approximately 0.35°C per decade, compared with just under 0.2°C per decade between 1970 and 2015. After filtering out natural influences including El Niño, volcanic activity and solar variation, researchers identified a near doubling of the underlying warming rate. If that pace continues, they warn that the long-term 1.5°C threshold associated with the Paris Agreement could be exceeded before 2030. In my opinion this is certain.
The legal significance of that finding extends beyond the scientific debate. Article 2 of the Paris Agreement aims to hold the increase in global average temperature to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Article 4 requires States to prepare and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (“NDCs”), with each successive contribution representing a progression and reflecting that State’s highest possible ambition.
Crossing 1.5°C would not, however, operate like breaching a straightforward statutory limit. The Paris framework combines a collective global temperature objective with obligations concerning the measures individual States take. The legal issue is therefore not simply whether global temperatures pass 1.5°C, but whether governments are taking sufficiently ambitious action in accordance with their international and domestic obligations.
That distinction is becoming increasingly important as finally climate obligations move from diplomacy into the courts. In Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights held in 2024 that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights encompasses a right to effective protection by State authorities against the serious adverse effects of climate change. The Court found that Switzerland had failed to comply with its positive obligations, identifying critical gaps in its domestic regulatory framework and failures to implement appropriate mitigation measures in time.
The international legal landscape developed further in July 2025 when the International Court of Justice delivered its Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. Although ICJ advisory opinions do not have binding force in the same way as judgments in contentious cases, the Court itself recognises that they carry significant legal weight and authority.
For the United Kingdom, these international developments sit alongside binding domestic climate legislation. Section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008 requires the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for 2050 is at least 100% below the 1990 baseline, creating the statutory net-zero target alongside the Act’s carbon-budget framework. This has not been amended which explains the government’s position in the North Sea.
Now the latest warming data may have consequences extending well beyond environmental policy. Stronger evidence that warming is accelerating could become increasingly relevant when courts assess government mitigation strategies, emissions targets and compliance with existing legal duties. It may also strengthen the evidential basis of future climate litigation where claimants argue that governments have failed to translate long-term commitments into sufficiently timely action.
The science does not itself determine legal liability. However, as the distance between international climate targets and the planet’s actual warming trajectory narrows, the legal question is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid: what are Countries required to do when the evidence shows that their existing action is simply not good enough?
© Lawrence Power 2026