The world is set to smash through a key global warming threshold in the next five years, according to horror findings from scientists.
There is a 66 per cent chance the planet will record an average temperature of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2027, the study said.
It would mark the first time in human history that Earth had hit that limit - seen as a guardrail against catastrophic climate change.
The research by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) also found there was a 98 per cent chance the world would record our hottest year ever by 2027.
Scots campaigners said the findings laid bare the need for urgent action at home and abroad to prevent us hurtling into climate catastrophe.
Mike Robinson, chair of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland said: “The climate crisis is already here - scientists have been sounding the alarm for the past 40 years, but concerted action has not been taken.
“This updated forecast shows that the window to keep heating below the most dangerous levels is closing, and faster than we previously estimated.
"However, there is still hope... every percentage of a degree of warming we can limit will save lives.”
He added: “The Scottish Government declared a climate emergency in 2019 and it must act accordingly, by publishing a bold, ambitious Climate Change Plan in November which will set out how big emitting sectors like transport, agriculture and heating will contribute to emission reductions.”
Scottish Green MSP Mark Ruskell said: “We need a dramatic shift away from the reckless and dangerous policies that have brought us to this point.
“Yet, even while we are right on the edge of disaster, climate-wrecking governments like the one in Downing Street are pushing for even more oil and gas exploration."
The UN’s 2015 Paris Agreement set a global temperature limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in a bid to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
That temperature would mean the planet was 1.5C hotter than it was in the mid-19th century, when fossil fuel emissions from industrialisation began to kick in.
But WMO scientists now say it’s “more likely than not” the world will hit that temperature in the next few years.
They stressed any breach may only be temporary - however, going over this limit annually for a decade or more would likely be devastating for our world, with heatwaves, storms and wildfires ramping up to ever greater heights.
Dr Leon Hermanson of the Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the experts who led the report, said: "We have never crossed 1.5C. The current record is 1.28C.
"It's very likely we're going to exceed that, we might even reach 1.5C - it's more likely than not that we will.
"It's not this long-term warming that the Paris Agreement talks about, but it is an indication that as we start having these years, with 1.5C happening more and more often, we're getting closer and closer to having the actual long-term climate being on that threshold."
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