August 2026 tied as the hottest month ever recorded globally, pushing average temperatures above the critical 1.5°C threshold as extreme weather swept across several regions, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said.
The month tied with July 2023 for the highest global average temperature on record and was 1.65°C warmer than the 19th-century pre-industrial average, according to Copernicus.
It was the first month since November 2025 when global temperatures rose more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold that nearly 200 countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to pursue efforts to avoid exceeding in the long term.
A single month above 1.5°C does not mean the Paris Agreement target has been permanently breached, as the goal refers to average warming over the long term.
The record heat coincided with a series of extreme weather events and climate-related disasters.
Scientists said climate change likely contributed to conditions behind deadly landslides and flash floods in Nepal and Tibet, although the precise role of warming is still under study.
Wildfires also spread from Indonesia to Greece and Belgium, while Hungary and Romania experienced severe drought.
Western Europe recorded its hottest summer on record, with unusually low river flows and soil moisture putting furtherpressure on farmers after repeated heatwaves damaged crops.
“The narrative around climate change has really transitioned from being quite an abstract concept that happens in a faraway place, to disrupting our daily lives,” Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts told Reuters.
She pointed to melting roads, buckling railway lines, school closures, overwhelmed hospitals and record wildfires as examples of Europe’s vulnerability to rising temperatures.
The heat extended to the world’s oceans, with sea surface temperatures outside the polar regions tying the highest level recorded for any month.
In the tropical Pacific, the developing El Niño weather pattern helped drive record temperatures.
El Niño is forecast to strengthen in the coming months, potentially adding more heat to a planet already warming because of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has accused the U.S. and Israel of seeking to foment internal divisions in Iran after failing to defeat the country militarily, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported.
The European Union's decision to simultaneously advance accession talks with Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro and Albania marks its most ambitious enlargement effort in more than two decades.
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Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 30 September 2026. These are the top five stories making headlines in Europe.
Passengers restrained a flydubai co-pilot who allegedly stabbed the pilot and tried to crash a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.
Türkiye’s COP31 presidency has unveiled an action agenda designed to turn climate commitments into concrete projects and measurable results, focusing on clean energy, waste reduction, resilient cities and industrial decarbonisation.
Greenland and Antarctica have shed a combined 11.3 trillion tonnes of ice since 1979, according to the most comprehensive satellite study of the planet's ice sheets to date, with researchers warning the pace of loss has accelerated sharply in recent decades.
The European Union will continue allowing large-scale plastic waste exports to Türkiye despite concerns over recycling rates, environmental damage and the risk of illegal waste trafficking.
Hundreds of thousands of deep-diving turtles, known as olive ridley sea turtles, have arrived on Mexico’s southern coast for one of nature’s most striking nesting events. But conservation officials warn that climate change is making it increasingly difficult for their eggs to hatch.
Increasingly intense wildfires and heat waves are threatening global efforts to improve air quality and protect public health, the United Nations’ weather agency has warned.
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