ENVIRONMENT experts called for urgent action from Westminster today after scientists predicted a 66 per cent chance that a global average temperature of more than 1.5°C will be recorded over the next five years.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) also said there is a 98 per cent chance of the hottest year on record being broken during that time.

Report co-leader Dr Leon Hermanson said that the 1.5°C mark above pre-industrial levels has never been crossed before, with the current record being 1.28°C.

He said that the record will likely come from a combination of greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Nino event, a heating of the eastern Pacific which affects rainfall and temperature globally.

Friends of the Earth head of science, policy and research Mike Childs said that while the news is alarming, “every fraction of a degree of arming counts.”

He said: “At the levels of global heating we’re already seeing, communities around the world are experiencing the devastating consequences of climate change, despite having done very little to cause it.

“Almost every day, it’s reported there’s a new climate disaster happening somewhere across the world, or here at home.”

Mr Childs said that countries that have contributed as much as Britain has to historic global emissions need to be doing “so much more” to prevent the harshest effects of climate breakdown.

“With the energy crisis bringing into focus the need to rapidly roll out green solutions, such as a programme of street-by-street insulation and onshore wind, there’s no justification for Britain remaining so desperately far behind,” he said.

Greenpeace UK chief scientist Doug Parr said that the report must be a “rallying cry to intensify global efforts” to tackle the crisis.

He said: “For too long, governments have dithered while allowing the fossil fuel and industrial food industries to reap obscene profits from their destruction of our climate.

“It is time for united international action to put a stop to their profiteering before it is too late.”

Green Party co–leader Carla Denyer urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “do the right thing” and end the plans to open the new coal mine in Cumbria and oil field in Rosebank as well as dropping “all new climate-wrecking oil and gas licences immediately.”

She said: “Our climate and natural world is in breakdown and the reason for this is crystal clear — the burning of fossil fuels.

“Despite this, the government continues to drive us all into further climate chaos by opening new coalmines, offering new oil and gas licences and spending billions on building new roads.

“It is only by keeping fossils in the ground and investing in measures which reduce our emissions and improve the quality of all of our lives that we will ever be able to address this climate and ecological emergency.”