Climate crisis: past eight years were the eight hottest ever, says UN

Forest fires approach the village of Pefki on Evia, Greece's second-largest island, in August during the worst heatwave in decades. Photograph: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images

The past eight years were the eight hottest ever recorded, a new UN report has found, indicating the world is now deep into the climate crisis. The internationally agreed 1.5C limit for global heating is now “barely within reach”, it said.

The report, by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), sets out how record high greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are driving sea level and ice melting to new highs and supercharging extreme weather from Pakistan to Puerto Rico.