KEY POINTS:

• The World Meteorological Organization said there is an 80% chance that global average temperatures will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for at least one year between 2024 and 2028.
• That prediction marks a stark change from 2015 when the prospect of temporarily overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius was considered close to zero.
• “We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a speech on Wednesday.

A weather arm of the United Nations on Wednesday warned that within the next five years, the world will likely surpass a critically important warming threshold, reinforcing the urgent need to slash planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions. ......