.png)
2026 Super El Niño
El Niño is back. But this one is different. This one is known as a “Super El Niño”, and it’s forecast to be the strongest on record “by a mind-blowing margin”. Arriving as the world grapples with existing crises, from excessive heat to food insecurity, scientists predict this “Super El Niño” will combine with global warming to push global temperatures in 2027 to new heights.
What is El Niño?
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern caused by warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
For the UK, El Niño brings warmer, drier summers, followed by colder winters. For countries like the Philippines, however, El Niño risks prolonged dry spells, extreme heat, and water shortages, all leading to catastrophic drought. But that’s only part of the picture. The Filipino meteorological agency, Pagasa, warns that while El Niño increases the likelihood of drought, it also causes abnormally high levels of rainfall in some areas, exposing communities to multiple hazards.
What harm can El Niño cause?
Prolonged dry conditions threaten crops and food security, while extreme heat affects people's ability to work. At a recent press conference organised by Greenpeace Philippines, fisherfolk leader Rosemarie Reyes described how rising temperatures take their toll:
"As a single parent…I feel the intensity of the heat every day as I try to earn a living for my family. During extreme heat, I have fewer hours to sell fish on the streets. Beyond that, my family's health is also put at risk."
El Niño can also disrupt the health of marine ecosystems as warmer ocean temperatures trigger coral bleaching, shift where fish swim, and reduce catches, placing more pressure on fishing communities. Arnold Obguia, a fisherfolk from a sinking island in Bohol, Philippines, said:
“The effect of climate change on us here [is] huge. Before, we caught lots of fish, but now we don’t. It’s because the weather keeps on changing, especially here in our island where the sea level is getting serious.”
For those like Arnold, who are recovering from events like Super Typhoon Odette, these are not isolated challenges. They are overlapping climate shocks that compound existing losses and make recovery more difficult.
Lessons from 2024 El Niño
The 2023-24 El Niño cycle reminds us that a quieter typhoon season does not mean a safer one. Seven of 11 storms intensified into typhoons, affecting six million people across the country and triggering multiple ‘states of calamity’. This year, 9-13 storms are forecast, and governments have been ramping up efforts to prepare communities.
The lesson is simple. Disaster risk transcends the number of storms. One single typhoon can wipe out livelihoods and years of progress, forcing communities back into recovery.
Climate change raises the stakes
Scientists are careful to distinguish between El Niño and climate change. El Niño is a naturally occurring climate cycle. Climate change does not cause El Niño. What climate change does is change the world in which El Niño unfolds, making its effects, like extreme heat and typhoons, more likely and more severe. Scientists describe these interactions as “compound climate risks”, situations where multiple hazards occur together or in succession, making disasters harder to prepare for, respond to, and recover from.
Why accountability matters
For many Filipinos, these risks are a reality. The families behind the Filipinos’ case against Shell continue to rebuild years after disasters like Super Typhoon Odette, only to face new climate shocks like drought, warming and rising seas and extreme heat, all compounding the losses of the last.
Preparing for El Niño requires more than weather advisories and water conservation; it requires holding companies like Shell, the forces that make these impacts more severe, accountable. While El Niño is a natural phenomenon, it’s returning to a planet that has been fundamentally altered by decades of fossil fuel emissions.
This trajectory wasn’t always how things would play out. We know now that climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent and more severe. Shell understood the risks decades ago. They buried the science. They funded disinformation. Leaving those who contributed least to the climate crisis to bear its greatest costs.
As El Niño approaches, these communities are told to brace for what lies ahead. But justice for them demands more than early warnings or disaster response. They deserve payment for the crisis they have already had to endure and meaningful action to prevent today’s extremes from becoming tomorrow’s normal.
This article discusses topics like: How does El Niño affect countries differently? Why are climate-vulnerable communities like those in the Philippines often among the hardest hit? What should people expect from El Niño in the Philippines? How will people need to prepare themselves for El Niño in the Philippines? How have fossil fuels have increased the severity of El Niño?