WMO Reports - El Niño Threatens Climate Stability in 2026.

 The UN-affiliated World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently released two reports on climate, improving our understanding of how climate change is evolving and giving us insight into what can be expected in 2026 and the next few years. Because of these insights, these reports have been hugely talked about, making headlines globally. This insight provides an overview of the key findings and what they mean for businesses and professionals around the world.

The State of the Climate 2025 Report.

Climate change is known for being caused by greenhouse gases, warming the atmosphere, oceans, disrupting water cycles and melting ice sheets. But that’s not the full story – greenhouse gases aren’t the only source of excess energy causing climate change. Other factors contribute to this, such as the albedo effects. In essence, what truly causes climate change is what experts refer to as an Earth Energy Imbalance (Figure 1) – greenhouse gases happen to be the dominant driver of that imbalance, which is why they are the focus of global attention.

Figure 1 - WMO, 2026.

The State of the Climate 2025 Report, published in March 2026, is clear: the Earth’s Energy Imbalance is at its highest in observed history. It has been growing since the 1960s, leading to the record imbalance we have now reached. The Earth is releasing less energy than it is trapping, constantly driving temperatures to increase both on land and in the ocean. In the process, natural systems such as ice sheets are destabilised in a vicious cycle – even creating risks of tipping points where such natural systems might collapse.

The trend is clear – the planet keeps warming, with the past 11 years being the hottest on record and 2025 being one of the three warmest years in recorded history, approximately 1.43°C warmer than pre-industrial levels – just after 2024.

2024 was famously warmer because of El Niño, which tends to exacerbate whatever the global temperature is. As it happens, the WMO also published a report on El Niño / La Niña a month ago, providing insight into the role these phenomena may or may not play into worsening human-made climate change.

El Niño / La Niña Update Report.

A month before the State of the Climate 2025 report was published, the WMO released the El Niño / La Niña Update report. The findings show that the recent La Niña event is fading, meaning that Pacific Ocean conditions are returning to normal.

Under normal Pacific Ocean conditions, strong trade winds blow from east to west, pushing warm surface water toward Asia. This water displacement draws cold, nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean off the coast of South America. This temperature contrast between the warm west and cool east drives the stable atmospheric patterns that contributes to the planet’s typical climate. However, these otherwise stable conditions regularly get disrupted by a natural oscillation. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle disrupts this pattern through two opposing phases: El Niño and La Niña. These irregular events are driven by different factors such as weakening of trade winds or changes in ocean currents. They therefore occur every two to seven years, typically lasting 9 to 12 months, though some can persist longer. Both phases significantly alter global weather, biodiversity, and natural systems, with El Niño (Figure 2) occurring slightly more often than La Niña (Figure 3). They both can be disruptive to economies – especially if they compound with human-made warming and climate change, which is currently the case.

Figure 2 - Internet Geography, 2025.

Figure 3 - Internet Geography, 2025.

While the consequences of El Niño and La Niña are subject to some level of uncertainty and heterogeneity across regions, La Niña tends to lead to lower temperatures while El Niño tends to increase them. That is because El Niño leads to warm water spreading further in seas and oceans and staying at the surface, leading more heat to be released in the atmosphere. Combined with preexisting global warming, that creates a temperature extreme.

What happens if El Niño develops?

According to an anticipatory report by ACAPS, an independent analytical organisation helping the humanitarian field with evidence-based information on crises, El Niño could trigger droughts, wildfires, heatwaves, heavy rains, and floods globally (Figure 4). These are further exacerbated by the rising average global temperatures caused by anthropogenic emissions.

Figure 4 - ACAPS, 2024.

These events then trigger a worrying number of crises: worsening health outcomes, deepening food insecurity and malnutrition, and mass displacement. Sadly, the heaviest burden falls on regions that have contributed the least to global emissions yet find themselves on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

If a strong El Niño develops in the second half of 2026, we will experience a sudden and permanent leap in global temperatures – as it compounds with human-made warming. In other words El Niño would effectively exacerbate Earth’s Energy Imbalance caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This surge would likely propel 2026 past 2024 to become the warmest year on record. Notably, 2024 currently holds this title, a record also driven by an El Niño event that had begun in 2023.

How likely are El Niño and La Niña?

With the fading of the recent La Niña, experts believe there is a 60% probability that March, April, and May of 2026 will return in a state called ENSO-Neutral – Pacific Ocean conditions returning to normal. Looking further ahead, the likelihood of El Niño developing rises to 40% from May onward, while a recurrence of La Niña is considered very unlikely. Although forecasts made at this time of year are inherently less reliable – due to a phenomenon called “Spring Predictability Barrier”: the Northern Hemisphere spring makes it difficult to create ENSO forecasts, these probabilities serve as a valuable indicator of upcoming climate trends.

While WMO remains conservative in El Niño projections, others are taking a different approach. Climate Prediction Center, a division of the USA’s National Weather Service, estimates that there is a 62% chance that El Niño emerges in June-August 2026 and could persist until end of 2026. In addition, some experts believe that this upcoming El Niño could be considered  “strong” to “super strong”. The last “strong” El Niño  events occurred in 1997-98 and 2016-16, with the latter raising ocean temperatures by around 2°C above average.

It is important to note that these predictions for 2026 remain speculative due to uncertainty. However, we do know that ENSO is cyclical and thus will occur in the near future – whether that is in 2026 or later. The simple truth is that an El Niño event – let alone a “strong” to “super strong” one – coupled with global warming caused by anthropogenic emissions could be catastrophic for biodiversity and ecosystems and consequently for people and the economy. Picture it as a temperature and climate extreme – while climate change and global temperatures are generally talked about in averages (e.g. we typically use the phrase “1.5°C warming” which is an average figure), they have very disparate impacts on different regions and across different years. Climate change impacts different regions and in different ways, and on top of this, its increase is oscillatory – on average it is always going up, but some year are much worse than others, because human-made climate change compounds with natural temperature imbalances – for instance, El Niño.

Conclusion and Call-to-action.

It is uncertain whether 2026 will experience the development of an El Niño, however, one thing is certain: it is looming in our near future. Coupled with an exacerbated Earth’s Energy Imbalance, the next El Niño could trigger catastrophic events that will be felt globally.

We unfortunately have no control over the ENSO cycle; we will need to deal with the upcoming El Niño and La Niña events when they come.

However, the good news is that we do control anthropogenic emissions. We need to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, improve our land management systems, and decrease consumption levels amongst many other initiatives across all industries.

Businesses and professionals therefore need the urgent help and support from membership bodies such as trade associations and professional bodies who represent and guide sectors. They are uniquely positioned to advocate for a green transition and represent their members within responsible policy advocacy. Membership bodies can help their sector and members become resilient in the face of climate change by adopting sustainable operations and mitigation measures.

Climate Action for Associations (CAFA) is the only dedicated network and resource hub dedicated to sustainability and net zero for the membership sector. CAFA equips membership bodies with the guidance, tools, and peer-to-peer network they need to take meaningful climate action and support their members in doing the same.

If you are a membership organisation wishing to know more about what you can do to support your members with sustainability and addressing climate risks, join CAFA today.