2026 State of the Climate report with Johan Rockström Transcript 0:00 to 25:09 Overshoot Podcast 16OCT2026 youtube.com/watch?v=lx4k97Ds… The Strategic Climate Risks Initiative hosted the launch event for the 2026 State of the Climate Report. This annual report gives an update on the planet’s vital signs and the critical factors determining our shared security, including greenhouse gas levels, Earth’s energy imbalance, the proximity to tipping points - and progress on tackling these issues SCRI's executive director, Laurie Laybourn, was joined by: 👉 Professor Johan Rockström 👉 Professor Ines Camilloni 👉 Professor Piers Forster 👉 Baroness Bryony Worthington Transcript Follow along using the transcript. Show transcript Overshoot Podcast Transcript 0:05 Laurie Laybourn: Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, wherever you might be in the world. Laurie Laybourn: My name's Laurie Laybourn, I'm Executive Director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative. We are hosting today's webinar, and we're delighted to have you. Welcome to this briefing on the 2026 State of the Climate Report, which was released today. 0:24 Laurie Laybourn: The Strategic Climate Risk Initiative is a think-and-do tank focused on the huge risks that the world now faces over 1.5 degrees, and how we might navigate them. And that's why we're particularly delighted to be hosting this fantastic panel to talk about this important update on the planet's vital signs. I'm going to give a few housekeeping points, and then I'll be handing over to our panel. The session is being recorded, and it is on the record. 0:47 Laurie Laybourn: Please send questions through the Q&A box that you'll see at the bottom of your screen. Please note your name and affiliation, and we will be taking questions from the press first. 0:58 Laurie Laybourn: If you experience any technical difficulties today, just try rejoining the session, as that may resolve it. For those who wish to use captions, you can do so with the CC button, again, at the bottom of your screen. 1:10 Laurie Laybourn: And my colleagues will be putting a link to the report in the chat, which we're just still waiting to be posted online. So with that, I'm delighted to introduce Bryony, Baroness Worthington, who is chairing us today. Bryony, please, over to you for our session. 1:27 Bryony Worthington: Thank you, Laurie, and thanks everyone for joining us for this important event. I am Bryony Worthington, I've been involved in climate for many years, and I think, like all of us, become increasingly concerned that the observable changes to our climate are accelerating, and therefore the risks we face are also accelerating. And this report is one of many that comes out. 1:50 Bryony Worthington: that gives us an annual snapshot of what's happening with observable data to our climate and to our response to the climate crisis. I'm delighted to be joined by an expert panel today, and we're going to kick off with hearing from one of the report authors, Johan Rockstrom. Johan is the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact. 2:13 Bryony Worthington: And a professor in Earth Systems Science at the University of Potsdam. Johan, as a report author, we're really keen to hear from you a quick summary of what the report contains. So over to you, please. 2:26 Johan Rockström: Yeah, thanks, Bani, and I'll be sharing my screen here. I hope that you see the first slide. Yeah, so this is the 2026 State of the Climate report, led by an international group of scientists. It is 2:40 Johan Rockström: Spearheaded by Professor Bill Ripple at Oregon State University, and the key findings are summarized here. We follow 16 vital climate signs. 7 of these 2026 show record extreme levels, and the majority of them continue moving in the wrong direction. 2:59 Johan Rockström: We see the first signs of an Earth system showing indications of losing resilience, meaning its buffering capacity to the disturbance caused by our heating of the planet. 3:12 Johan Rockström: We also have statistical, verified evidence that global warming is accelerating. We'll come back to this. Overshoot is now inevitable. Within the next 3 to 5 years, we'll be breaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit. 3:25 Johan Rockström: Tipping points are approaching fast. Johan Rockström: And solutions away from escalating danger. 3:32 Johan Rockström: are available, but needs to be moving very fast. Now, here you have the kind of major slide deck that we follow each year with the 16 vital indicators. I won't go through these all in detail. The number one key take-home is 3:50 Johan Rockström: that the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane, and natural oxides continue rising, so we've not been able to bend the curve of emissions yet, which is 3:59 Johan Rockström: very concerning, because there are no IPCC scenarios that can bring us to a safe landing, minimizing the Overshoot pathway if we do not bend the curves very rapidly within just the next few years. 4:14 Johan Rockström: The second key… Johan Rockström: indicator I'd like to point you to is the glacial thickness from mountain glacial thickness, which is following a pathway, as you see, of a rapid accelerating decline. 4:32 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, This is the scientific evidence that was used by the World Weather Attribution, proving that the catastrophic glacier collapse in the Tibetan Nepalese plateau would not have been possible without anthropogenic forcing. 4:48 Johan Rockström: We also have the very concerning decline of albedo. Ice is melting fast. Tree lines are moving north. The planet is getting darker, absorbing more heat. And Piers Forster will come back. 5:02 Johan Rockström: to this point on how that translated into more heat being trapped on the planet. And then we have also the indications that the biosphere is reducing its capacity to take up carbon, and the one data point here is the global tree cover loss because of fires increasing very rapidly across the planet. 5:24 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, Which all of it translates to a rising Earth energy imbalance, and again, Piers will come back to this. So this is an overall diagnostic of the planet, showing an Earth system 5:35 Johan Rockström: That is, been trying to geobiophysically buffer the disturbance we're causing, but showing the first signs of not being able to cope at the level that we have been seeing over the past 150 years. 5:48 Johan Rockström: Now, this is then, in detail, shown very clearly in the observations of temperature rise. Here you see the hockey stick of temperature observations. 5:59 Johan Rockström: The 1950 to year 2000, 0.11 degrees Celsius of rise of temperature, global mean surface temperature per decade, is the rate that essentially leads us to the conclusion that we have a global climate crisis. 6:13 Johan Rockström: It's what has translated into the Paris Agreement, it is what is translated into the UK climate law, the German 6:24 Johan Rockström: The European Union. Johan Rockström: And then suddenly, we reach 2010, Johan Rockström: And bang, you see what happens. We see for the first time an accelerated rate of warming, which is now statistically verified, with a jump that, depending on how you calculate this, is at least 60% increase. And this is a deep concern, because it's not explained only by increase in emissions, because we are actually gradually leveling up emissions. 6:52 Johan Rockström: It is related to complex factors that will be follow up on energy imbalance. But one factor here is what I just summarized for you, changes in feedback dynamics from the Earth system. 7:05 Johan Rockström: Now, this is also the same with the observations in the ocean. Here you have the Pacific Ocean, the blue lines is the 1990 to 2020, gradually warming ocean due to our anthropogenic pressures. 7:19 Johan Rockström: You see in red thin lines the most recent El Nino occurrences, and then you have the 2026 pathway where we are completely off the chart. 7:29 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, I mean, we are almost 3 degrees Celsius above the average temperature levels. We are in a supercharged El Nino pathway, and the dotted lines is the forecast for the next 3 to 6 7:40 Johan Rockström: John Fischer, months, and what we have already experienced in this year 2026 is unprecedented extreme events of fires, droughts, in particular floods in the tropical region, and we're likely to see even more extreme events in the coming months, given these forecasts. 7:58 Johan Rockström: Now, that, just to close, Should then be juxtaposed to the fact that we're also seeing 8:05 Johan Rockström: a lot of data points showing non-linear positive trends, particularly in the energy transition. And the upper left-hand graph here, I think, is the most significant one, where we, in 2025, now can conclude for the first time that renewable energy is outpacing 8:24 Johan Rockström: coal to produce electricity at a global level. Johan Rockström: But we also have a tremendous positive exponential rise in electrification. 8:34 Johan Rockström: across all sectors, but in particular the transport sector, which you see in the lower right-hand corner. So we are really in a juncture where we have 8:43 Johan Rockström: Negative trends moving faster in a very concerning way. Johan Rockström: putting the entire stability of the planet at risk, but at the same time, we have more and more evidence also of a window of transition for accelerated pathways towards at least a manageable climate future for humanity. And with that, I hand 9:04 Johan Rockström: Back to you, Bryony. Thank you. Bryony Worthington: Thank you so much Johan for that super concise run through the paper and I believe the paper is now live and a link has been posted in the chat for you to click on and read. I'm going to turn now to Piers Forster who is the director, a professor of physical climate change and the founding director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at Leeds University. He's a former IPCC lead author 9:32 Bryony Worthington: And Piers, we'd just like to come to you for basically a little bit of an explanation of that kind of all-encompassing number of the Earth energy imbalance, and also your reaction to the indicators, the latest use of indicators data in this paper. 9:48 Bryony Worthington: Over to you. Piers Forster: Yeah, yeah, it's excellent to be here today. The first thing I should make clear is that I was not an author of this excellent work, but I do… 10:02 Piers Forster: do really appreciate the work that we put in to put these data sets together. So, I briefly want to pick up on something that Johan introduced, which is this Perth Energy Imbalance. 10:19 Piers Forster: quantity. It's a bit of a technical quantity, but I want to stay and write an important one to understand. So what this does, this integrates all the 10:31 Piers Forster: heating going on in the earth. It indicates the… teaching of the… Ocean, the atmosphere. 10:41 Piers Forster: Here, the ice and the… Piers Forster: kind of soil, and it does put all of this together to work out what's going on in the integrative sort of world. 10:53 Piers Forster: compare. And we can really track this through recording the temperatures, but we can also track it directly from satellites. And what it… what it tells us is what… 11:10 Piers Forster: Can Johan introduce effectively the… the… heating of the… climate system is celebrating. 11:24 Piers Forster: And the other thing to point. Piers Forster: this increasing Heating we observe, it does appear to be right at the… right at the top top 11:42 Piers Forster: top end of the predictions coming from our computer simulations. So, it's good to unpick… I'm trying to pick this to understand what's going… 11:55 Piers Forster: Hold on. So so the big cause of this increase comes, of course, from the very 12:02 Piers Forster: High level of clean house gas. Piers Forster: emissions and concentration currently, and this is continuing to heat up the Earth, of course. But it's not the only thing that's going on. The other thing is that we do have this cleanup of air pollution at the same 12:28 Piers Forster: time, and that contributes about a 12:36 Piers Forster: third of this increase in the Earth's energy imbalance we're experiencing, and we expect this to continue. And the other thing that's going on, and perhaps the thing that is most concerning, is 12:51 Piers Forster: Either we do… do see this alteration in the 12:57 Piers Forster: Okay, the atmospheric and responding, and we see a reduction in the amount of 13:06 Piers Forster: clouds in particular, and this does turn the Earth service darker, and it is taking about heat up more rapidly. 13:19 Piers Forster: The very last bit of information the energy imbalance tells us is what we can expect for the Earth temperature change in the next… 13:32 Piers Forster: 1 to 5 year time. Piers Forster: fucking frame coming up, and Whitehouse, we can… we can expect 13:44 Piers Forster: really significant temperature increases over the next 5 years, and of course. 13:52 Piers Forster: Part of that increase is this big temps effect that's currently coming from the current LNEO. 13:59 Piers Forster: So, so I'm very happy to answer a bit more about this topic, but I'll pass back to our chair, back to you, Bryony. 14:08 Bryony Worthington: Thank you so much, Piers. Yes, I should say that both Johan Piers Ines and Laurie will be joining me for a panel discussion, and then we'll be opening up to questions within this hour. But I'm going to turn now to Ines Camilloni. Ines is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, and is also Vice Chair of IPCC Working Group One, and is currently at an IPCC 14:33 Bryony Worthington: Ines, thank you for joining us. We'd love to hear your response to this, to this paper this, this morning. Thank you, or afternoon. 14:42 Inés Camilloni: Thank you, Bramney, and thank you for the invitation to be part of this webinar. 14:47 Inés Camilloni: And really, this paper is fundamental for the IPCC work, and in this sense, it's important to have in mind the products the IPCC is preparing in this Simons Assessment Cycle. 15:04 Inés Camilloni: The IPCC is working in the three main reports coming from the three working groups of the IPCC, the fiscal basis of climate change, the Working Group 2 related to impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, and Working Group 3 related to mitigation. 15:21 Inés Camilloni: But also, the IPCC is working on a special report on climate change and cities, and two methodology reports that are absolutely relevant when talking about the urgency of. 15:35 Inés Camilloni: not avoiding overshoot, because it looks that it's impossible to avoid it, but at least to work towards stabilization of climate, and these methodology reports are… one is on the inventories for short-lived climate forces, and the other one is on carbon dioxide removal technologies, carbon capture, utilization, and storage. 15:58 Inés Camilloni: So, it was mentioned already by Johan, we are in a climate crisis. The climate conditions now are unprecedented. 16:09 Inés Camilloni: And these conditions have emerged as a result of cumulative anthropogenic emissions. And the state of climate and the climate indicators that were presented are fundamental for the IPCC assessment reports. 16:27 Inés Camilloni: And the information that is included in this paper establishes a robust scientific evidence base for evaluating the changes in the climate system, and also for the identification of the drivers of climate change. 16:47 Inés Camilloni: And. Inés Camilloni: This, foundation also allows us to understand that climate change is now stronger than ever, and… 16:59 Inés Camilloni: This, is supported by an expanded observational data sets. We have better models than ever. We have evidence from. 17:09 Inés Camilloni: Paleoclimate indicators, also the science of attribution of climate change has been developing a lot during the last years. And we also have knowledge from new systems considered now in the IPCC reports with much more stronger input related to indigenous peoples and local communities knowledge. 17:33 Inés Camilloni: So. Inés Camilloni: The information that is presented in this paper is absolutely relevant for the Working Group 1 assessment report that includes observations on global surface temperatures, the ocean heat content, sea level rise, and also changes in greenhouse gases concentration, and trends related to all these variables to show how the climate system 17:59 Inés Camilloni: The system is changing. Inés Camilloni: And also for the attribution of these changes. Inés Camilloni: And also, it's relevant for Working Group 2 related to the impacts and risks of climate change, because it allows us to not only evaluate the observed impacts in ecosystem, human health, infrastructure, and also agriculture, but also to evaluate the future risks associated to different scenarios of 18:28 Inés Camilloni: of climate change, and of course provides the basis for, different international climate negotiations, including the UNFCCC, related to mitigation and the different options we have. 18:44 Inés Camilloni: to stabilize the climate. So, the big challenge we have now is how we can translate this robust scientific knowledge that is relevant into something that is actionable, that can guide 19:01 Inés Camilloni: In some way, the risk management, and also adaptation, and early warning, and long-term decision making, because the decisions we make now are crucial for the future, and science really can show us the consequences of the different pathways, the different options. 19:19 Inés Camilloni: We have, and if we can really reduce future climate risk, it will be essential to do that, but this depends on how quickly and how widely and how fairly we act now. 19:36 Inés Camilloni: Back to you. Bryony Worthington: Thank you. Thank you so much, Vanessa, for taking time out of your busy IPCC schedule to join us, and I'm glad you're going to join us in the panel after this. But first, back to Laurie. Laurie, you focus a lot on the risks associated with this accelerating climate change indicators. Talk to us a little bit about your work on derailment risk, and what you worry about in terms of 20:02 Bryony Worthington: the near term of how we're going to be impacted by climate change. 20:07 Laurie Laybourn: Yeah, thanks, Bryony. The first thing I think to establish is that the, the changes that we're seeing presented by Johan are now increasingly graduating into security concerns. They are stressing the fundamental security of many nations around the world. That's not news to anyone, for example, who's staring down 20:23 Laurie Laybourn: this, Super Union that's upcoming, but it's also happening in countries that have Laurie Laybourn: so far felt relatively sheltered, including food security shocks that are happening across Europe. 20:33 Laurie Laybourn: Particularly off the back of this severe summer that we, experienced, in recent months. So, what that means is, we're going into the situation where 20:42 Laurie Laybourn: the systems that we need for shared stability are beginning to be stressed now. So that level of resilience is being challenged, not just at a system level, but at a societal level, and that trend is really starting to emerge. 20:55 Laurie Laybourn: What that means into the future, or what we're concerned about. Laurie Laybourn: is that the two overall trends that Johan was presenting of nonlinear changes in the Earth system, but then also nonlinear progress with, for example, the collapsing price of renewables, those two trends will increasingly meet each other. 21:12 Laurie Laybourn: And it could be that as the consequences of climate change become more severe, it could increasingly frustrate or distract us from dealing with the causes of climate change. And that's what we define as derailment risk. The idea that we could be derailed 21:27 Laurie Laybourn: From a trajectory to ultimately bring us back into some kind of. Laurie Laybourn: Earth system stability. That's not guaranteed that we would be derailed, but the risk is growing as a result of those worsening consequences. What that means is we need to pay far more heed to how we can ensure societies are more resilient so they can stay focused on climate action, even in an era above 1.5 degrees, where climate consequences are getting more severe. So. 21:54 Laurie Laybourn: One of the features, I think, one of the key states of where we are now as we head over 1.5 degrees is we have to pay far more heed. 22:01 Laurie Laybourn: To how societies can not just reduce the harms of a 1.5. Laurie Laybourn: but ensure that they can protect their agency to act so that we can minimize the length and duration of overshoot. So, into the future, we hope that there will be increasing focus on this potential derailment risk, that it could even become something that we see as an indicator, and that will hopefully ensure that people are focused on how we can mitigate that alongside these other risks. 22:28 Laurie Laybourn: Thanks, Bonnie. Bryony Worthington: Thank you so much, Laurie. Right, well, we're now going to have an open discussion about what we've just heard, and then please, if you've got your questions ready, please put them in the Q&A function, and then we'll be coming to you after in the next 10-15 minutes. But I wanted to kick things off, but back to you, Johan. Clearly, risks are escalating, and some of the risks are long-term. 22:54 Bryony Worthington: quite slow moving, but others are… and some could be adapted to, but others are much more unpredictable, or much more threatening and irreversible. So, which are the… which are the risks that really you keep an eye on, that you're concerned about, that policymakers should also be paying attention to? 23:15 Johan Rockström: Yeah, so we have, I would say, come quite a long way to scientifically verify that we have 23:23 Johan Rockström: 16, what we call climate tipping element systems, large biophysical systems. 23:29 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, that are mapped in the IPCC, and that have been, you know, thoroughly scientifically investigated, which are spread across the entire planet, and that fulfill these two criteria that you're hinting at. One is that they contribute to regulate 23:44 Johan Rockström: the stability of the climate system, but secondly, that they have multiple stable states. Push them too far, and they can cross a threshold, and they 23:52 Johan Rockström: Irreversibly shift from a state that generically actually dampened and cooled the planet. 23:59 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, to becoming a warming and self-amplifying system. And the classic example is when ice sheets melt. In the beginning, they are white surfaces, stable, reflecting, on average, 90% of incoming shortwave radiation back to space. 24:16 Johan Rockström: gary scott: When they melt at the surface, they gradually get darker, and they come to a very, very sharp point where they 24:23 Johan Rockström: Shift from being a net cooling system to becoming a self-amplified net warming system, and that's the tipping point. 24:31 Johan Rockström: And among those 16 systems, we have now 24:36 Johan Rockström: Based on, still, a lot of uncertainty that has to always be recognized, but 6 of them 24:43 Johan Rockström: fall, even in their median assessments, to be likely to cross the thresholds if we permanently exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius. So that just shows how close they are. And among these, you have the Greenan Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, abrupt thawing of permafrost, but also, now with the latest science, the risk of 25:02 Johan Rockström: pushing a significant part, and particularly the Brazilian side of the Amazon basin, across the threshold. 25:09 Johan Rockström: The one, victim number one, among all these, is… Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, with very little uncertainty, the tropical coral reef systems. They have a very narrow uncertainty range.

2026 State of the Climate report with Johan Rockström Transcript 0:00 to 25:09 Overshoot Podcast 16OCT2026 youtube.com/watch?v=lx4k97Ds… The Strategic Climate Risks Initiative hosted the launch event for the 2026 State of the Climate Report. This annual report gives an update on the planet’s vital signs and the critical factors determining our shared security, including greenhouse gas levels, Earth’s energy imbalance, the proximity to tipping points - and progress on tackling these issues SCRI's executive director, Laurie Laybourn, was joined by: 👉 Professor Johan Rockström 👉 Professor Ines Camilloni 👉 Professor Piers Forster 👉 Baroness Bryony Worthington Transcript Follow along using the transcript. Show transcript Overshoot Podcast Transcript 0:05 Laurie Laybourn: Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, wherever you might be in the world. Laurie Laybourn: My name's Laurie Laybourn, I'm Executive Director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative. We are hosting today's webinar, and we're delighted to have you. Welcome to this briefing on the 2026 State of the Climate Report, which was released today. 0:24 Laurie Laybourn: The Strategic Climate Risk Initiative is a think-and-do tank focused on the huge risks that the world now faces over 1.5 degrees, and how we might navigate them. And that's why we're particularly delighted to be hosting this fantastic panel to talk about this important update on the planet's vital signs. I'm going to give a few housekeeping points, and then I'll be handing over to our panel. The session is being recorded, and it is on the record. 0:47 Laurie Laybourn: Please send questions through the Q&A box that you'll see at the bottom of your screen. Please note your name and affiliation, and we will be taking questions from the press first. 0:58 Laurie Laybourn: If you experience any technical difficulties today, just try rejoining the session, as that may resolve it. For those who wish to use captions, you can do so with the CC button, again, at the bottom of your screen. 1:10 Laurie Laybourn: And my colleagues will be putting a link to the report in the chat, which we're just still waiting to be posted online. So with that, I'm delighted to introduce Bryony, Baroness Worthington, who is chairing us today. Bryony, please, over to you for our session. 1:27 Bryony Worthington: Thank you, Laurie, and thanks everyone for joining us for this important event. I am Bryony Worthington, I've been involved in climate for many years, and I think, like all of us, become increasingly concerned that the observable changes to our climate are accelerating, and therefore the risks we face are also accelerating. And this report is one of many that comes out. 1:50 Bryony Worthington: that gives us an annual snapshot of what's happening with observable data to our climate and to our response to the climate crisis. I'm delighted to be joined by an expert panel today, and we're going to kick off with hearing from one of the report authors, Johan Rockstrom. Johan is the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact. 2:13 Bryony Worthington: And a professor in Earth Systems Science at the University of Potsdam. Johan, as a report author, we're really keen to hear from you a quick summary of what the report contains. So over to you, please. 2:26 Johan Rockström: Yeah, thanks, Bani, and I'll be sharing my screen here. I hope that you see the first slide. Yeah, so this is the 2026 State of the Climate report, led by an international group of scientists. It is 2:40 Johan Rockström: Spearheaded by Professor Bill Ripple at Oregon State University, and the key findings are summarized here. We follow 16 vital climate signs. 7 of these 2026 show record extreme levels, and the majority of them continue moving in the wrong direction. 2:59 Johan Rockström: We see the first signs of an Earth system showing indications of losing resilience, meaning its buffering capacity to the disturbance caused by our heating of the planet. 3:12 Johan Rockström: We also have statistical, verified evidence that global warming is accelerating. We'll come back to this. Overshoot is now inevitable. Within the next 3 to 5 years, we'll be breaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit. 3:25 Johan Rockström: Tipping points are approaching fast. Johan Rockström: And solutions away from escalating danger. 3:32 Johan Rockström: are available, but needs to be moving very fast. Now, here you have the kind of major slide deck that we follow each year with the 16 vital indicators. I won't go through these all in detail. The number one key take-home is 3:50 Johan Rockström: that the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane, and natural oxides continue rising, so we've not been able to bend the curve of emissions yet, which is 3:59 Johan Rockström: very concerning, because there are no IPCC scenarios that can bring us to a safe landing, minimizing the Overshoot pathway if we do not bend the curves very rapidly within just the next few years. 4:14 Johan Rockström: The second key… Johan Rockström: indicator I'd like to point you to is the glacial thickness from mountain glacial thickness, which is following a pathway, as you see, of a rapid accelerating decline. 4:32 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, This is the scientific evidence that was used by the World Weather Attribution, proving that the catastrophic glacier collapse in the Tibetan Nepalese plateau would not have been possible without anthropogenic forcing. 4:48 Johan Rockström: We also have the very concerning decline of albedo. Ice is melting fast. Tree lines are moving north. The planet is getting darker, absorbing more heat. And Piers Forster will come back. 5:02 Johan Rockström: to this point on how that translated into more heat being trapped on the planet. And then we have also the indications that the biosphere is reducing its capacity to take up carbon, and the one data point here is the global tree cover loss because of fires increasing very rapidly across the planet. 5:24 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, Which all of it translates to a rising Earth energy imbalance, and again, Piers will come back to this. So this is an overall diagnostic of the planet, showing an Earth system 5:35 Johan Rockström: That is, been trying to geobiophysically buffer the disturbance we're causing, but showing the first signs of not being able to cope at the level that we have been seeing over the past 150 years. 5:48 Johan Rockström: Now, this is then, in detail, shown very clearly in the observations of temperature rise. Here you see the hockey stick of temperature observations. 5:59 Johan Rockström: The 1950 to year 2000, 0.11 degrees Celsius of rise of temperature, global mean surface temperature per decade, is the rate that essentially leads us to the conclusion that we have a global climate crisis. 6:13 Johan Rockström: It's what has translated into the Paris Agreement, it is what is translated into the UK climate law, the German 6:24 Johan Rockström: The European Union. Johan Rockström: And then suddenly, we reach 2010, Johan Rockström: And bang, you see what happens. We see for the first time an accelerated rate of warming, which is now statistically verified, with a jump that, depending on how you calculate this, is at least 60% increase. And this is a deep concern, because it's not explained only by increase in emissions, because we are actually gradually leveling up emissions. 6:52 Johan Rockström: It is related to complex factors that will be follow up on energy imbalance. But one factor here is what I just summarized for you, changes in feedback dynamics from the Earth system. 7:05 Johan Rockström: Now, this is also the same with the observations in the ocean. Here you have the Pacific Ocean, the blue lines is the 1990 to 2020, gradually warming ocean due to our anthropogenic pressures. 7:19 Johan Rockström: You see in red thin lines the most recent El Nino occurrences, and then you have the 2026 pathway where we are completely off the chart. 7:29 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, I mean, we are almost 3 degrees Celsius above the average temperature levels. We are in a supercharged El Nino pathway, and the dotted lines is the forecast for the next 3 to 6 7:40 Johan Rockström: John Fischer, months, and what we have already experienced in this year 2026 is unprecedented extreme events of fires, droughts, in particular floods in the tropical region, and we're likely to see even more extreme events in the coming months, given these forecasts. 7:58 Johan Rockström: Now, that, just to close, Should then be juxtaposed to the fact that we're also seeing 8:05 Johan Rockström: a lot of data points showing non-linear positive trends, particularly in the energy transition. And the upper left-hand graph here, I think, is the most significant one, where we, in 2025, now can conclude for the first time that renewable energy is outpacing 8:24 Johan Rockström: coal to produce electricity at a global level. Johan Rockström: But we also have a tremendous positive exponential rise in electrification. 8:34 Johan Rockström: across all sectors, but in particular the transport sector, which you see in the lower right-hand corner. So we are really in a juncture where we have 8:43 Johan Rockström: Negative trends moving faster in a very concerning way. Johan Rockström: putting the entire stability of the planet at risk, but at the same time, we have more and more evidence also of a window of transition for accelerated pathways towards at least a manageable climate future for humanity. And with that, I hand 9:04 Johan Rockström: Back to you, Bryony. Thank you. Bryony Worthington: Thank you so much Johan for that super concise run through the paper and I believe the paper is now live and a link has been posted in the chat for you to click on and read. I'm going to turn now to Piers Forster who is the director, a professor of physical climate change and the founding director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at Leeds University. He's a former IPCC lead author 9:32 Bryony Worthington: And Piers, we'd just like to come to you for basically a little bit of an explanation of that kind of all-encompassing number of the Earth energy imbalance, and also your reaction to the indicators, the latest use of indicators data in this paper. 9:48 Bryony Worthington: Over to you. Piers Forster: Yeah, yeah, it's excellent to be here today. The first thing I should make clear is that I was not an author of this excellent work, but I do… 10:02 Piers Forster: do really appreciate the work that we put in to put these data sets together. So, I briefly want to pick up on something that Johan introduced, which is this Perth Energy Imbalance. 10:19 Piers Forster: quantity. It's a bit of a technical quantity, but I want to stay and write an important one to understand. So what this does, this integrates all the 10:31 Piers Forster: heating going on in the earth. It indicates the… teaching of the… Ocean, the atmosphere. 10:41 Piers Forster: Here, the ice and the… Piers Forster: kind of soil, and it does put all of this together to work out what's going on in the integrative sort of world. 10:53 Piers Forster: compare. And we can really track this through recording the temperatures, but we can also track it directly from satellites. And what it… what it tells us is what… 11:10 Piers Forster: Can Johan introduce effectively the… the… heating of the… climate system is celebrating. 11:24 Piers Forster: And the other thing to point. Piers Forster: this increasing Heating we observe, it does appear to be right at the… right at the top top 11:42 Piers Forster: top end of the predictions coming from our computer simulations. So, it's good to unpick… I'm trying to pick this to understand what's going… 11:55 Piers Forster: Hold on. So so the big cause of this increase comes, of course, from the very 12:02 Piers Forster: High level of clean house gas. Piers Forster: emissions and concentration currently, and this is continuing to heat up the Earth, of course. But it's not the only thing that's going on. The other thing is that we do have this cleanup of air pollution at the same 12:28 Piers Forster: time, and that contributes about a 12:36 Piers Forster: third of this increase in the Earth's energy imbalance we're experiencing, and we expect this to continue. And the other thing that's going on, and perhaps the thing that is most concerning, is 12:51 Piers Forster: Either we do… do see this alteration in the 12:57 Piers Forster: Okay, the atmospheric and responding, and we see a reduction in the amount of 13:06 Piers Forster: clouds in particular, and this does turn the Earth service darker, and it is taking about heat up more rapidly. 13:19 Piers Forster: The very last bit of information the energy imbalance tells us is what we can expect for the Earth temperature change in the next… 13:32 Piers Forster: 1 to 5 year time. Piers Forster: fucking frame coming up, and Whitehouse, we can… we can expect 13:44 Piers Forster: really significant temperature increases over the next 5 years, and of course. 13:52 Piers Forster: Part of that increase is this big temps effect that's currently coming from the current LNEO. 13:59 Piers Forster: So, so I'm very happy to answer a bit more about this topic, but I'll pass back to our chair, back to you, Bryony. 14:08 Bryony Worthington: Thank you so much, Piers. Yes, I should say that both Johan Piers Ines and Laurie will be joining me for a panel discussion, and then we'll be opening up to questions within this hour. But I'm going to turn now to Ines Camilloni. Ines is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, and is also Vice Chair of IPCC Working Group One, and is currently at an IPCC 14:33 Bryony Worthington: Ines, thank you for joining us. We'd love to hear your response to this, to this paper this, this morning. Thank you, or afternoon. 14:42 Inés Camilloni: Thank you, Bramney, and thank you for the invitation to be part of this webinar. 14:47 Inés Camilloni: And really, this paper is fundamental for the IPCC work, and in this sense, it's important to have in mind the products the IPCC is preparing in this Simons Assessment Cycle. 15:04 Inés Camilloni: The IPCC is working in the three main reports coming from the three working groups of the IPCC, the fiscal basis of climate change, the Working Group 2 related to impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, and Working Group 3 related to mitigation. 15:21 Inés Camilloni: But also, the IPCC is working on a special report on climate change and cities, and two methodology reports that are absolutely relevant when talking about the urgency of. 15:35 Inés Camilloni: not avoiding overshoot, because it looks that it's impossible to avoid it, but at least to work towards stabilization of climate, and these methodology reports are… one is on the inventories for short-lived climate forces, and the other one is on carbon dioxide removal technologies, carbon capture, utilization, and storage. 15:58 Inés Camilloni: So, it was mentioned already by Johan, we are in a climate crisis. The climate conditions now are unprecedented. 16:09 Inés Camilloni: And these conditions have emerged as a result of cumulative anthropogenic emissions. And the state of climate and the climate indicators that were presented are fundamental for the IPCC assessment reports. 16:27 Inés Camilloni: And the information that is included in this paper establishes a robust scientific evidence base for evaluating the changes in the climate system, and also for the identification of the drivers of climate change. 16:47 Inés Camilloni: And. Inés Camilloni: This, foundation also allows us to understand that climate change is now stronger than ever, and… 16:59 Inés Camilloni: This, is supported by an expanded observational data sets. We have better models than ever. We have evidence from. 17:09 Inés Camilloni: Paleoclimate indicators, also the science of attribution of climate change has been developing a lot during the last years. And we also have knowledge from new systems considered now in the IPCC reports with much more stronger input related to indigenous peoples and local communities knowledge. 17:33 Inés Camilloni: So. Inés Camilloni: The information that is presented in this paper is absolutely relevant for the Working Group 1 assessment report that includes observations on global surface temperatures, the ocean heat content, sea level rise, and also changes in greenhouse gases concentration, and trends related to all these variables to show how the climate system 17:59 Inés Camilloni: The system is changing. Inés Camilloni: And also for the attribution of these changes. Inés Camilloni: And also, it's relevant for Working Group 2 related to the impacts and risks of climate change, because it allows us to not only evaluate the observed impacts in ecosystem, human health, infrastructure, and also agriculture, but also to evaluate the future risks associated to different scenarios of 18:28 Inés Camilloni: of climate change, and of course provides the basis for, different international climate negotiations, including the UNFCCC, related to mitigation and the different options we have. 18:44 Inés Camilloni: to stabilize the climate. So, the big challenge we have now is how we can translate this robust scientific knowledge that is relevant into something that is actionable, that can guide 19:01 Inés Camilloni: In some way, the risk management, and also adaptation, and early warning, and long-term decision making, because the decisions we make now are crucial for the future, and science really can show us the consequences of the different pathways, the different options. 19:19 Inés Camilloni: We have, and if we can really reduce future climate risk, it will be essential to do that, but this depends on how quickly and how widely and how fairly we act now. 19:36 Inés Camilloni: Back to you. Bryony Worthington: Thank you. Thank you so much, Vanessa, for taking time out of your busy IPCC schedule to join us, and I'm glad you're going to join us in the panel after this. But first, back to Laurie. Laurie, you focus a lot on the risks associated with this accelerating climate change indicators. Talk to us a little bit about your work on derailment risk, and what you worry about in terms of 20:02 Bryony Worthington: the near term of how we're going to be impacted by climate change. 20:07 Laurie Laybourn: Yeah, thanks, Bryony. The first thing I think to establish is that the, the changes that we're seeing presented by Johan are now increasingly graduating into security concerns. They are stressing the fundamental security of many nations around the world. That's not news to anyone, for example, who's staring down 20:23 Laurie Laybourn: this, Super Union that's upcoming, but it's also happening in countries that have Laurie Laybourn: so far felt relatively sheltered, including food security shocks that are happening across Europe. 20:33 Laurie Laybourn: Particularly off the back of this severe summer that we, experienced, in recent months. So, what that means is, we're going into the situation where 20:42 Laurie Laybourn: the systems that we need for shared stability are beginning to be stressed now. So that level of resilience is being challenged, not just at a system level, but at a societal level, and that trend is really starting to emerge. 20:55 Laurie Laybourn: What that means into the future, or what we're concerned about. Laurie Laybourn: is that the two overall trends that Johan was presenting of nonlinear changes in the Earth system, but then also nonlinear progress with, for example, the collapsing price of renewables, those two trends will increasingly meet each other. 21:12 Laurie Laybourn: And it could be that as the consequences of climate change become more severe, it could increasingly frustrate or distract us from dealing with the causes of climate change. And that's what we define as derailment risk. The idea that we could be derailed 21:27 Laurie Laybourn: From a trajectory to ultimately bring us back into some kind of. Laurie Laybourn: Earth system stability. That's not guaranteed that we would be derailed, but the risk is growing as a result of those worsening consequences. What that means is we need to pay far more heed to how we can ensure societies are more resilient so they can stay focused on climate action, even in an era above 1.5 degrees, where climate consequences are getting more severe. So. 21:54 Laurie Laybourn: One of the features, I think, one of the key states of where we are now as we head over 1.5 degrees is we have to pay far more heed. 22:01 Laurie Laybourn: To how societies can not just reduce the harms of a 1.5. Laurie Laybourn: but ensure that they can protect their agency to act so that we can minimize the length and duration of overshoot. So, into the future, we hope that there will be increasing focus on this potential derailment risk, that it could even become something that we see as an indicator, and that will hopefully ensure that people are focused on how we can mitigate that alongside these other risks. 22:28 Laurie Laybourn: Thanks, Bonnie. Bryony Worthington: Thank you so much, Laurie. Right, well, we're now going to have an open discussion about what we've just heard, and then please, if you've got your questions ready, please put them in the Q&A function, and then we'll be coming to you after in the next 10-15 minutes. But I wanted to kick things off, but back to you, Johan. Clearly, risks are escalating, and some of the risks are long-term. 22:54 Bryony Worthington: quite slow moving, but others are… and some could be adapted to, but others are much more unpredictable, or much more threatening and irreversible. So, which are the… which are the risks that really you keep an eye on, that you're concerned about, that policymakers should also be paying attention to? 23:15 Johan Rockström: Yeah, so we have, I would say, come quite a long way to scientifically verify that we have 23:23 Johan Rockström: 16, what we call climate tipping element systems, large biophysical systems. 23:29 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, that are mapped in the IPCC, and that have been, you know, thoroughly scientifically investigated, which are spread across the entire planet, and that fulfill these two criteria that you're hinting at. One is that they contribute to regulate 23:44 Johan Rockström: the stability of the climate system, but secondly, that they have multiple stable states. Push them too far, and they can cross a threshold, and they 23:52 Johan Rockström: Irreversibly shift from a state that generically actually dampened and cooled the planet. 23:59 Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, to becoming a warming and self-amplifying system. And the classic example is when ice sheets melt. In the beginning, they are white surfaces, stable, reflecting, on average, 90% of incoming shortwave radiation back to space. 24:16 Johan Rockström: gary scott: When they melt at the surface, they gradually get darker, and they come to a very, very sharp point where they 24:23 Johan Rockström: Shift from being a net cooling system to becoming a self-amplified net warming system, and that's the tipping point. 24:31 Johan Rockström: And among those 16 systems, we have now 24:36 Johan Rockström: Based on, still, a lot of uncertainty that has to always be recognized, but 6 of them 24:43 Johan Rockström: fall, even in their median assessments, to be likely to cross the thresholds if we permanently exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius. So that just shows how close they are. And among these, you have the Greenan Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, abrupt thawing of permafrost, but also, now with the latest science, the risk of 25:02 Johan Rockström: pushing a significant part, and particularly the Brazilian side of the Amazon basin, across the threshold. 25:09 Johan Rockström: The one, victim number one, among all these, is… Johan Rockström: Gil Preuss, with very little uncertainty, the tropical coral reef systems. They have a very narrow uncertainty range.

The 2026 state of the climate report: challenges and opportunities Free 14OCT2026 William J Ripple , Christopher Wolf , Michael E Mann , Johan Rockström , … et al. academic.oup.com/bioscience/… Abstract Earth’s climate system is moving deeper into uncharted territory. We present the 2026 update of planetary vital signs that track the state of Earth’s climate system, alongside indicators of the human activities driving ongoing change. Of 16 climate-related indicators, seven are currently at record extremes. Several indicators also show evidence of accelerating trends or abrupt shifts, raising concerns about increasing climate instability, interacting feedbacks, and the growing risk of crossing critical tipping points. Human activities, particularly fossil fuel combustion, remain the dominant drivers of these changes. Despite the worsening trends, encouraging signs of societal changes are emerging, including the rapid expansion of renewable electricity and battery storage, although progress remains far below the scale and speed needed to stabilize Earth’s climate system. Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, effective adaptation, ecosystem protection, and transformative societal change remain essential to reducing climate risks and securing a more resilient and sustainable future. We are witnessing the rapid destabilization of the Earth’s climate system. This is no longer a warning for the future; it is a diagnosis of the present. Earth’s life-support systems are being pushed beyond stable limits, with changes unfolding faster than our ability to respond. Human activities are driving profound shifts in the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher now than any time in the last 2 million years (IPCC 2021). Across the globe, extreme heat, floods, droughts, storms, and wildfires are no longer rare events but defining features of a changing planet. For example, July 2026 was the hottest month on record for the contiguous United States (1895–present) (NOAA 2026), while global ocean temperatures also reached a record high for July (figure S1). Climate-related changes appear to be accelerating and intensifying, raising concerns about reinforcing feedbacks and crossing of tipping points, with potential irreversible impacts. Climate change is increasingly interacting with global biodiversity loss, freshwater stress, food insecurity, pathogens, and geopolitical instability, amplifying risks across interconnected human and natural systems. Yet, the gap between scientific understanding and societal response continues to widen despite mounting evidence of escalating risks. The evidence for accelerating climate and ecological disruption is now so compelling that attention must shift toward rapid decarbonization as well as adaptation, resilience, scalable responses, and transformative systemic change. Crucially, the communities least responsible for historical emissions, particularly in the Global South and small island states, are bearing disproportionately severe and early consequences, raising fundamental questions of climate justice that must inform both policy and science. Amid these intensifying risks, important signs of societal and technological transformation are also emerging. Solar and wind power are expanding rapidly worldwide, with low-carbon sources providing roughly 43% of global electricity generation in 2025 (Ember 2026a). This signals the emergence of a new clean-energy era, the Age of Electricity. At the same time, advances in energy storage, adaptation planning, ecosystem restoration, and climate response tools are providing new opportunities to reduce risks from climate change and strengthen resilience across human and natural systems. Although current progress remains far below what is needed to stabilize the climate system, these developments suggest that large-scale societal transformation remains possible and still within reach. In this report, we update the vital signs of the planet and the human activities driving their rapid change. We provide a clear synthesis of the latest evidence for scientists, policymakers, and the public while identifying the risks ahead and the opportunities for meaningful action still available. Documenting change is no longer enough. We must also communicate what it means and what actions are needed. As scientists, we have a responsibility to communicate these realities with clarity and urgency. This report is part of our ongoing effort to deliver timely, accessible updates on rapidly intensifying climate change. Planetary vital signs Of 16 planetary vital signs spanning greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, the oceans, ice, energy balance, and wildfire, 7 (44%) are currently at record extremes, and several show evidence of acceleration or abrupt shifts (figure 1; and see table S1 for data sources and methods). Figure 1 Time series of climate-related responses. For surface temperature anomaly (d), estimates based on a segmented linear regression model are shown in gray (prior to 2010) and black (beginning in 2010). For area burned (o), the black horizontal lines show changepoint model estimates, which indicate abrupt shifts (figure S3). For other variables with relatively high variability, local regression trendlines are shown in black. The variables were measured at various frequencies (e.g., annual, monthly, weekly). The labels on the x-axis correspond to midpoints of years. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1.

The 2026 state of the climate report: challenges and opportunities Free 14OCT2026 William J Ripple , Christopher Wolf , Michael E Mann , Johan Rockström , … et al. academic.oup.com/bioscience/… Abstract Earth’s climate system is moving deeper into uncharted territory. We present the 2026 update of planetary vital signs that track the state of Earth’s climate system, alongside indicators of the human activities driving ongoing change. Of 16 climate-related indicators, seven are currently at record extremes. Several indicators also show evidence of accelerating trends or abrupt shifts, raising concerns about increasing climate instability, interacting feedbacks, and the growing risk of crossing critical tipping points. Human activities, particularly fossil fuel combustion, remain the dominant drivers of these changes. Despite the worsening trends, encouraging signs of societal changes are emerging, including the rapid expansion of renewable electricity and battery storage, although progress remains far below the scale and speed needed to stabilize Earth’s climate system. Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, effective adaptation, ecosystem protection, and transformative societal change remain essential to reducing climate risks and securing a more resilient and sustainable future. We are witnessing the rapid destabilization of the Earth’s climate system. This is no longer a warning for the future; it is a diagnosis of the present. Earth’s life-support systems are being pushed beyond stable limits, with changes unfolding faster than our ability to respond. Human activities are driving profound shifts in the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher now than any time in the last 2 million years (IPCC 2021). Across the globe, extreme heat, floods, droughts, storms, and wildfires are no longer rare events but defining features of a changing planet. For example, July 2026 was the hottest month on record for the contiguous United States (1895–present) (NOAA 2026), while global ocean temperatures also reached a record high for July (figure S1). Climate-related changes appear to be accelerating and intensifying, raising concerns about reinforcing feedbacks and crossing of tipping points, with potential irreversible impacts. Climate change is increasingly interacting with global biodiversity loss, freshwater stress, food insecurity, pathogens, and geopolitical instability, amplifying risks across interconnected human and natural systems. Yet, the gap between scientific understanding and societal response continues to widen despite mounting evidence of escalating risks. The evidence for accelerating climate and ecological disruption is now so compelling that attention must shift toward rapid decarbonization as well as adaptation, resilience, scalable responses, and transformative systemic change. Crucially, the communities least responsible for historical emissions, particularly in the Global South and small island states, are bearing disproportionately severe and early consequences, raising fundamental questions of climate justice that must inform both policy and science. Amid these intensifying risks, important signs of societal and technological transformation are also emerging. Solar and wind power are expanding rapidly worldwide, with low-carbon sources providing roughly 43% of global electricity generation in 2025 (Ember 2026a). This signals the emergence of a new clean-energy era, the Age of Electricity. At the same time, advances in energy storage, adaptation planning, ecosystem restoration, and climate response tools are providing new opportunities to reduce risks from climate change and strengthen resilience across human and natural systems. Although current progress remains far below what is needed to stabilize the climate system, these developments suggest that large-scale societal transformation remains possible and still within reach. In this report, we update the vital signs of the planet and the human activities driving their rapid change. We provide a clear synthesis of the latest evidence for scientists, policymakers, and the public while identifying the risks ahead and the opportunities for meaningful action still available. Documenting change is no longer enough. We must also communicate what it means and what actions are needed. As scientists, we have a responsibility to communicate these realities with clarity and urgency. This report is part of our ongoing effort to deliver timely, accessible updates on rapidly intensifying climate change. Planetary vital signs Of 16 planetary vital signs spanning greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, the oceans, ice, energy balance, and wildfire, 7 (44%) are currently at record extremes, and several show evidence of acceleration or abrupt shifts (figure 1; and see table S1 for data sources and methods). Figure 1 Time series of climate-related responses. For surface temperature anomaly (d), estimates based on a segmented linear regression model are shown in gray (prior to 2010) and black (beginning in 2010). For area burned (o), the black horizontal lines show changepoint model estimates, which indicate abrupt shifts (figure S3). For other variables with relatively high variability, local regression trendlines are shown in black. The variables were measured at various frequencies (e.g., annual, monthly, weekly). The labels on the x-axis correspond to midpoints of years. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1.

The 2026 state of the climate report: challenges and opportunities Free 14OCT2026 William J Ripple , Christopher Wolf , Michael E Mann , Johan Rockström , … et al. academic.oup.com/bioscience/… Abstract Earth’s climate system is moving deeper into uncharted territory. We present the 2026 update of planetary vital signs that track the state of Earth’s climate system, alongside indicators of the human activities driving ongoing change. Of 16 climate-related indicators, seven are currently at record extremes. Several indicators also show evidence of accelerating trends or abrupt shifts, raising concerns about increasing climate instability, interacting feedbacks, and the growing risk of crossing critical tipping points. Human activities, particularly fossil fuel combustion, remain the dominant drivers of these changes. Despite the worsening trends, encouraging signs of societal changes are emerging, including the rapid expansion of renewable electricity and battery storage, although progress remains far below the scale and speed needed to stabilize Earth’s climate system. Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, effective adaptation, ecosystem protection, and transformative societal change remain essential to reducing climate risks and securing a more resilient and sustainable future. We are witnessing the rapid destabilization of the Earth’s climate system. This is no longer a warning for the future; it is a diagnosis of the present. Earth’s life-support systems are being pushed beyond stable limits, with changes unfolding faster than our ability to respond. Human activities are driving profound shifts in the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher now than any time in the last 2 million years (IPCC 2021). Across the globe, extreme heat, floods, droughts, storms, and wildfires are no longer rare events but defining features of a changing planet. For example, July 2026 was the hottest month on record for the contiguous United States (1895–present) (NOAA 2026), while global ocean temperatures also reached a record high for July (figure S1). Climate-related changes appear to be accelerating and intensifying, raising concerns about reinforcing feedbacks and crossing of tipping points, with potential irreversible impacts. Climate change is increasingly interacting with global biodiversity loss, freshwater stress, food insecurity, pathogens, and geopolitical instability, amplifying risks across interconnected human and natural systems. Yet, the gap between scientific understanding and societal response continues to widen despite mounting evidence of escalating risks. The evidence for accelerating climate and ecological disruption is now so compelling that attention must shift toward rapid decarbonization as well as adaptation, resilience, scalable responses, and transformative systemic change. Crucially, the communities least responsible for historical emissions, particularly in the Global South and small island states, are bearing disproportionately severe and early consequences, raising fundamental questions of climate justice that must inform both policy and science. Amid these intensifying risks, important signs of societal and technological transformation are also emerging. Solar and wind power are expanding rapidly worldwide, with low-carbon sources providing roughly 43% of global electricity generation in 2025 (Ember 2026a). This signals the emergence of a new clean-energy era, the Age of Electricity. At the same time, advances in energy storage, adaptation planning, ecosystem restoration, and climate response tools are providing new opportunities to reduce risks from climate change and strengthen resilience across human and natural systems. Although current progress remains far below what is needed to stabilize the climate system, these developments suggest that large-scale societal transformation remains possible and still within reach. In this report, we update the vital signs of the planet and the human activities driving their rapid change. We provide a clear synthesis of the latest evidence for scientists, policymakers, and the public while identifying the risks ahead and the opportunities for meaningful action still available. Documenting change is no longer enough. We must also communicate what it means and what actions are needed. As scientists, we have a responsibility to communicate these realities with clarity and urgency. This report is part of our ongoing effort to deliver timely, accessible updates on rapidly intensifying climate change. Planetary vital signs Of 16 planetary vital signs spanning greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, the oceans, ice, energy balance, and wildfire, 7 (44%) are currently at record extremes, and several show evidence of acceleration or abrupt shifts (figure 1; and see table S1 for data sources and methods). Figure 1 Time series of climate-related responses. For surface temperature anomaly (d), estimates based on a segmented linear regression model are shown in gray (prior to 2010) and black (beginning in 2010). For area burned (o), the black horizontal lines show changepoint model estimates, which indicate abrupt shifts (figure S3). For other variables with relatively high variability, local regression trendlines are shown in black. The variables were measured at various frequencies (e.g., annual, monthly, weekly). The labels on the x-axis correspond to midpoints of years. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1.