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The latest global State of Wildfires report, published today, shows that the 2025 Iberian Fire Season was three times larger due to climate change.
2025 saw the largest wildfire burned area on record across the EU, with Spain recording its highest burned area since 2002 and Portugal experiencing the largest single wildfire on record. The report, produced by the Met Office, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the University of East Anglia (UEA), and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), also warns that climate change is making the most severe wildfires more likely, more intense, and more damaging in many regions across the world.
On Monday, the UN Climate Change Conference, COP31, started in Antalya, Türkiye. World leaders, scientists and other experts are coming together to discuss and negotiate action against climate change.
As the conference began, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published their State of the Climate Update 2026 report, which indicates that 2026 will be one of the four warmest years on record.
“We have entered a new age of climate extremes. A supersized El Niño is colliding with a planet already superheated by manmade climate change. Climate records keep falling. The human costs keep rising. And those least responsible are suffering first and worst. Leaders must get serious by cutting emissions faster, accelerating a just transition from fossil fuels and delivering the finance and protection vulnerable countries need.” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
On Friday, the Met Office published our latest CO2 forecast looking ahead to 2027.
 Met Office scientist Emily Wright, who worked on the forecast, said: “We’re expecting a particularly large rise in CO₂ for 2027, and the strong El Niño is playing an important role in that. Human emissions are still driving the long-term increase, but plants, soils and oceans normally absorb some of the CO₂ we release. El Niño events reduce how much they absorb overall, leaving more CO₂ in the atmosphere.”
On 2 November, the Met Office published provisional statistics for October weather, which was wetter, warmer and sunnier than average across the UK.
Met Office Scientist Dr Emily Carlisle said: “October saw a notable shift towards more unsettled weather, with low-pressure systems bringing repeated spells of rain through the month. Rainfall was particularly concentrated towards the end of October as Storms Austen and Boelo affected the UK in quick succession.”
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