UN warns the world will overshoot the 1.5 °C limit
UNEP says the no-overshoot path is lost and calls for a 45% emissions cut by 2035 to return below that threshold before the century ends.
The world will exceed 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) of warming. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) declared the chance of avoiding that lost in its 2026 emissions gap report, released Wednesday.
According to the document, the option of holding warming to 1.5 °C with "no or limited" overshoot "has been lost." One route remains: exceed the threshold, stay below 2 °C and return to 1.5 °C before 2100. The Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, set that figure as its most ambitious goal.
Emissions have not peaked. In 2025 they totaled 58.4 gigatons of CO₂ equivalent, give or take 5.5, just 0.1 less than in 2024. The dip came partly from land use, with fewer fires; fossil fuel emissions kept growing. The G20 accounts for 76% of the total, and its emissions, excluding land use, rose 0.7%.
The lowest-overshoot path demands far more than countries promise in their nationally determined contributions, the cutting plans each government submits under the Paris Agreement.
| Year | Cut needed | Cut under current pledges |
|---|---|---|
| 2030 | 18% | 5% to 8% |
| 2035 | 45% | 11% to 15% |
| 2040 | 69% | No data |
That amounts to cutting about 6% a year through 2035, tripling renewable capacity by then and removing 320 gigatons of CO₂ from the atmosphere by the end of the century, about eight times 2024 emissions.
"The emissions gap is now a leadership gap," the UN secretary-general said.
Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director, noted that installed renewable energy has grown three times faster than projections since Paris. Over the past decade, 63 countries cut their emissions and 124 raised them.
Every fraction of a degree and every year above 1.5 °C raises climate risks, the report warns. Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, summed up the conclusion: what is urgent is for governments to legislate now to burn less fossil fuel.
