This year is set to be the hottest since records began in the 19th century according to the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation which says 16 of the 17 hottest years recorded have been in this century.
It's very likely 20-16 will be the hottest year on record, with new data showing global average temperatures this year are 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The assessment was released as delegates from around the world met in the Moroccan capital, Marrakesh for talks on ways to implement the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation, Petteri Taalas, says the figures indicates a backwards shift in efforts to tackle climate change.
"On instruments of record so far and if you look at the first nine months of this year, we are fairly high up again and we are breaking all the records. And it's likely that we are going to reach this year 1.2 degrees warming level. We are going in the wrong direction if you think of the 1.5 degrees warming level which was agreed last year in Paris."
The Paris deal came into effect last month after it was ratified by more than 100 nations, including Australia.
The historic deal was reached last August by more than 180 countries and marked the first time that governments agreed legally binding limits to global temperature rises.
It's goal - to limit the rise in temperatures to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, but ideally 1.5 degres. .
With rising temperatures comes extreme weather events. In May, Canada had its worst recorded wildfire. The Yangtze basin in China had its worst summer floods since 1999.
And the most damaging weather event in 20-16 was Hurricane Matthew, which killed more than 500 people in Haiti.
Mr Taalas says we are seeing these extremes more often because of climate change.
"We cannot identify that each individual event is because of climate change, but for sure the frequency of those events has increased because of climate change."
He believes more impact based weather forecasts and early warning systems will save lives.
"In the coming decades we will see this negative trend to continue anyhow, which means that we will see more often disasters related to weather, and a very powerful way to adapt to this change is to invest in the early warning systems which are provided by the National Meteorological and Hydrological services."
Climate experts say the increase in temperatures is believed to affected by the El Nino weather phenomenon and from man-made greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels.
As well as limit average world temperatures, the agreement aims to wean the world economy off fossil fuels.
But earlier this week new data, presented to the conference in Morocco, projected that world carbon dioxide emissions were expected to stay flat for the third year in a row in 20-16, in part due to China's declining use of coal.
Amy Cameron, from the UK's Climate awareness charity, 10:10 says she's hopeful .
The fact that we're seeing carbon emissions plateau while the economy is continuing to grow show us that we do have the solution we need at hand. The challenge now is to move from carbon emissions plateauing off to carbon emissions falling. And that's when we are going to see the temperature stabilising as well."
But there are concerns that any progress made will stagnate once President-elect Donald Trump is inaugarated on January 20th.
Mr Trump has previously called climate change a hoax and has indicated plans to abandon the Paris agreement.
Ms Cameron says if Mr Trump doesn't honour the agreement, he will be doing so in the face of an economic shift to green energy.
"We're already seeing onshore wind is cheaper in the US and UK, the prices of solar keep of falling. So Donald Trump may be able to slow this transition but he definetly can't stop it."
And on the sidelines of the Morocco talks, the US Special Envoy for Climate Change, Jonathan Pershing, said he believes the country's push to counter climate change will remain on track.
"Heads of state can and will change but I am confident that we can and we will sustain a durable international effort to counter climate change."
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