LONDON: Greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high, with yearly emissions equivalent to 54 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Humanity has caused surface temperatures to warm by 1.14°C since the late 1800s – and this warming is increasing at an unprecedented rate of over 0.2°C per decade.

The highest temperatures recorded over land (what climate scientists refer to as maximum land surface temperatures) are increasing twice as fast. And it’s these temperatures that are most relevant to the record heat people feel or whether wildfires spawn.

These changes mean that the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C – the amount of carbon dioxide global society can still emit and keep a 50% chance of holding temperature rise to 1.5°C – is now only around 250 billion tonnes.

At current emission levels, this will run out in less than six years.

These are the findings of a new report published by 50 scientists around the world. It tracks the most recent changes in emissions, temperatures and energy flows in the Earth system. Data that can inform climate action. For example, by informing how fast emissions need to fall to meet international temperature goals. The first report, in what is to become a series of annual reports, has captured the pace at which Earth is heating up.

An initiative Indicators of Global Climate Change has been launched which brings all the necessary ingredients together to track human-induced warming year by year for the first time. The emissions of both greenhouse gases and particulate pollution and their warming or cooling influences are tracked to determine their role in causing surface temperature change.