UN report: world will overshoot 1.5C warming limit, 18% emissions cut needed by 2030

A window that has closed

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded in its annual Emissions Gap Report 2026, released on Wednesday, 21 October, that the world will pass the 1.5C limit set under the Paris Agreement. The report, titled The Point of Return, calls the overshoot "imminent and unavoidable" after decades of insufficient action on fossil fuel emissions. Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director, acknowledged that the sustained effort earlier reports had called for never materialised, so the window for staying below 1.5C has now closed. The Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, set well below 2C as the main target and 1.5C as the stretch goal, measured against pre-industrial levels from 1850 to 1900. The findings come ahead of the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, which takes place in November.

The lowest-overshoot pathway

The lowest achievable overshoot scenario in the report would see warming peak at between 1.7C and 1.8C around the middle of the century. Under that path there is roughly a 50% chance that temperatures return to 1.5C or below by 2100. Reaching it requires global emissions to fall 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040, all measured against 2025 levels. Guterres said the reductions would amount to almost 6% a year until 2035, and he summed up his message as "overshoot is not surrender". He put the problem bluntly.

“The emissions gap is now a leadership gap.”

203018%

203545%

204069%

2030

18 %

2035

45 %

2040

69 %

Data from the article text

Pledges fall short

Under current policies, UNEP projects warming of 2.8C this century, with temperatures continuing to rise afterwards. Even if every nationally determined contribution (NDC) is delivered, the projection falls only to 2.6C. A total of 167 countries have submitted climate plans to the UN, covering 83% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Those pledges would cut emissions by 5-8% by 2030 and 11-15% by 2035 relative to 2025, and the new commitments made since the last report have barely altered the outcome. The projections are higher than last year's, which the experts attribute to the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and to revised estimates of historical emissions.

Current policies2.8

All NDCs delivered2.6

Current policies

2.8 °C

All NDCs delivered

2.6 °C

Data from the article text

Emissions and the United States

Preliminary estimates show emissions rose in 2025 in Indonesia, China and the United States. The US increase was far larger than any other country's, driven by a return to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel source, and by rising electricity demand partly tied to the expansion of AI data centers. The US is the second-largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases, and the report links the worsened outlook partly to President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Since Trump's second term began, his administration has rolled back environmental regulations and expanded oil and gas production. Bill Hare, CEO of the science and policy institute Climate Analytics, reacted to the findings.

“The main takeaway is simple, governments need to get on with enacting policies that cut fossil fuel use as soon as possible.”