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Heat has stripped the green from the hills behind Sydney's western fringe. Fire crews worked through October 2025 with trucks parked on suburban streets.[1]
The 2026 State of the Climate Report, published on 14 October in BioScience, confirms those weeks as part of a wider shift.[1]
Australia contributes to this science through the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. For Australian readers, the findings land close to home.[12]
The report tracks 16 planetary vital signs across greenhouse gases, temperature, oceans, ice, energy balance and wildfire.[1]
Seven sit at record extremes, and several show acceleration or abrupt shifts, according to the authors.[1]
Researchers at Oregon State University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Potsdam Institute produced the annual assessment.[1]
This seventh edition reads colder in tone than earlier annual editions of the same series.[2]
Extreme heat, floods, droughts, storms and wildfires now count as defining features of the planet.[1]
July 2026 became the hottest month on record for the contiguous United States, using data back to 1895.[1]
Global ocean temperatures also reached a record high for July.[1]
An extreme European heatwave in June 2026 caused about 14,000 excess deaths, the report notes.[1]
Fossil fuel consumption increased by 0.9 per cent in 2025, with oil up 1.0 per cent and gas up 1.3 per cent.[1]
Coal rose 0.4 per cent, so all three fuels reached record highs in the same year.[13]
Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions surpassed 41 gigatonnes for the first time, equal to 10,800 coal-fired plants running for a year.[3]
Solar and wind consumption grew about 18 per cent in 2025, yet still hold a small share of total energy use.[1]
August 2026 was the hottest August globally since record-keeping began in 1850, NOAA reported.[6]
NASA agreed, and Copernicus rated it the hottest month in recorded history, level with July 2023.[6]
The agencies agree on the ranking while differing on the margin, because each uses its own baseline and method.[6]
September ran 1.63°C above the pre-industrial average, the second straight month above 1.5°C.[7]
Copernicus found 2025 as the third-warmest year, with the three-year average above 1.5°C for the first time.[5]
That three-year average marks a milestone, though the Paris limit refers to a long-term mean.[5]
UNEP's Limiting Overshoot report projects peak warming of 1.8°C in its best case, and above 2°C in most others.[4]
UNEP calls carbon dioxide removal necessary alongside deep emissions cuts, with governance to match.[4]
COP31 convenes in Antalya, Türkiye, with Australia holding the presidency of negotiations.[9]
Pacific leaders used the Fiji pre-COP to press the frontline case for faster action.[10]
The IPCC remains deadlocked over its next assessment cycle, slowing the science that underpins national targets.[14]
The European Union will push a package deal at the summit to accelerate emissions cuts.[16]
The Climate Risk Index 2026 counts over 9,700 extreme weather events from 1995 to 2024, with more than 830,000 deaths.[11]
Direct damage across those three decades exceeded USD 4.5 trillion, adjusted for inflation.[11]
Health organisations want COP31 to treat protection of human health as a measure of whether climate action works.[8]
Warmer Mediterranean waters now drive measurable change along Türkiye's southern coast, ahead of the summit.[15]
The evidence assembled in this report points to a system moving past the conditions that shaped modern Australia.
Governments hold the levers on emissions, adaptation funding and carbon removal governance, and the record shows slow movement on all three.[1]
COP31 gives Australia a rare platform to convert scientific warning into binding commitments, and the window is closing.[9]
1. The 2026 State of the Climate Report: Challenges and Opportunities. Peer-reviewed assessment in BioScience tracking 16 planetary vital signs, seven at record extremes.
2. 2026 State of the Climate Report Shows a Planet Reaching Its Limits. Eos coverage of the report's framing and expert reaction.
3. Climate Change Is Accelerating Faster Than We Can Respond, Scientists Warn. Reportage on the 41 gigatonne emissions milestone and fossil fuel records.
4. UNEP: World Set to Cross 1.5°C Global Warming, but Can Still Limit, Adapt to and Return from Higher Temperatures. The Limiting Overshoot report setting out the overshoot, peak and decline pathway and the case for carbon dioxide removal.
5. Global Warming Topped Key 1.5C Limit Over Last Three Years, EU Scientists Say. Copernicus analysis of the first three-year average above 1.5°C.
6. Earth Just Had Its Hottest August on Record. Yale Climate Connections analysis of NOAA, NASA and Copernicus August 2026 data.
7. Super El Niño Could Make 2026 Hottest Year on Record. Reporting on September's 1.63°C anomaly and the role of El Niño.
8. COP31: Climate and Health at the 2026 UN Climate Change Conference. Global Climate and Health Alliance program page for health programming and asks at COP31.
9. COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, November 2026. Official UNFCCC conference page covering the Antalya venue, dates and the Australia-led negotiating presidency.
10. Pre-COP 31. Official Fiji, Tuvalu and Australia pre-COP ministerial and leaders event page, held 5 to 8 October 2026.
11. Climate Risk Index 2026 — Who Suffers Most from Extreme Weather Events?. Germanwatch index of deaths, people affected and economic losses from extreme weather, 1995 to 2024.
12. State of the Climate. CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology biennial assessment of Australia's climate trends and extremes.
13. World Energy Outlook 2025. International Energy Agency data on global fossil fuel demand, published 12 November 2025.
14. Inside the Deadlock at the World's Top Climate Science Body. Reuters investigation into the IPCC impasse and its effect on the next assessment cycle.
15. Turtles Offer Early Warning from a Warming Mediterranean Ahead of COP31. Reuters field reporting from Türkiye's Mediterranean coast on warming seas.
16. EU Eyes COP31 Climate Deal to Accelerate CO2 Cuts. Reuters on the EU's proposed COP31 package and the emissions commitments inside it.
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