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(CNN) -
The likelihood of the Earth's average temperature passing even temporarily a crucial tipping point is increasing, according to the world's leading weather and climate organization.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday that there is now about a 40% chance that the annual mean global temperature will temporarily reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in at least one of the next five years.
He also said that the chances of reaching that threshold increase over time.
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The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified 1.5 degrees Celsius as a key tipping point beyond which the risk of extreme droughts, wildfires, floods and food shortage.
"These are more than statistics," WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
"Rising temperatures mean more melting ice, higher sea levels, more heat waves and other extreme weather events and greater impacts on food security, health, the environment and sustainable development," he explained.
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By signing the Paris Agreement, countries around the world agreed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Better still, the agreement said, would be to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees.
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A call for urgent action against climate change
However, the world is approaching the tipping point.
The WMO said that the mean annual temperature is likely to be at least 1 degree higher than pre-industrial levels in the next five years, and it is very likely to be in the range of 0.9 to 1.8 degrees above.
The organization added that 2020 was one of the three hottest years on record and that the global average temperature was 1.2 degrees above the pre-industrial baseline.
According to the WMO, there is a 90% probability that at least one of the years between 2021 and 2025 will become the hottest on record, surpassing 2016 in the ranking, according to the annual climate update to decennial (Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update) generated by the UK meteorological office, WMO's main hub for such predictions.
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This is one more reason to take urgent action against climate change, according to Taalas.
"We are getting measurably and inexorably closer to the lower (temperature rise) target of the Paris Agreement on climate change," he said.
"The world needs to accelerate commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality."
The IPCC reported that to reach the Paris target, global greenhouse gas emissions must reach net zero by 2050. Many countries have pledged to be carbon neutral by mid-century and several of the largest economies - including states The United Kingdom, Canada and the United States - recently updated their short-term emission reduction targets.
However, the UN has warned that details on how they plan to get there remain vague.
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