Catalonia is already dealing with hotter summers and more extreme weather, and a new United Nations forecast suggests the pressure will grow over the next few years. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says there is a 75% chance that the global average temperature between 2026 and 2030 will be more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The 1.5C mark is the warming limit set in the Paris Agreement. The WMO says new temperature records are likely in this period, with greater risks of dangerous heat, wildfires and other climate impacts that will also affect Catalonia.
Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London, told the Associated Press that a year or more above 1.5C would mean a wide range of extreme weather events, many of them hotter, wetter or drier than anything seen before. She said this would mean more deaths, higher food prices and more intense wildfires.
The report links the rise in temperatures to burning coal, oil and gas. It also says 1.5C is not a sudden tipping point, but that every small increase in warming brings greater harm. Melissa Seabrook, co-author of the report and a climatologist at the UK Met Office, said every thousandth of a degree has an increasingly greater impact.
The WMO also points to a likely strong El Niño phase, a natural climate pattern that can raise global temperatures. It says this episode could last until 2028, and Seabrook said 2027 is likely to be hotter than the record set in 2024.
The report raises particular concern for the Arctic, where warming is happening 3.5 times faster than in the rest of the planet, and for the Amazon, where warmer and drier conditions could increase wildfire risk. The WMO says current efforts to curb climate change are not enough, and that stronger action is needed to reduce fossil fuel dependence and limit the impact on Catalonia and beyond.
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