The United Nations says that current global climate policy puts the planet on course for 2.8 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. That is no improvement on the previous assessment, and the projection based on announced measures has moved from up to 2.5 degrees last year to 2.6 degrees now. If every country carries out the climate measures it has announced, warming would reach 2.6 degrees by 2100, according to the UN calculation. Even the most optimistic scenario, in which all countries meet their climate plans and reach their stated climate neutrality targets, still gives 2.1 degrees by 2100.
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The main factor cited is the retreat of the United States, which has fully abandoned its earlier climate plans under President Donald Trump. Because the US is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, political changes there feed straight into global estimates, the authors explain. The report also says that data on past greenhouse gas emissions were revised upward, which pushed the projections higher. The 2.8 degree figure reflects current policy, while the 2.6 degree figure assumes that announced measures are actually implemented.
Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, based in Nairobi, warned that every fraction of a degree above 1.5 raises the risk of deadly floods, heatwaves and wildfires, like those many countries experienced this year. The 1.5 degree limit is not yet officially considered broken, because that would require exceeding it over the long term. The EU climate service Copernicus nonetheless reports that for 2023 to 2025 the average warming over a three-year period exceeded 1.5 degrees for the first time. UN Secretary-General António Guterres framed the situation as an overshoot that is not capitulation, arguing that temperatures can still be kept as low and brief as possible and brought back below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.
Returning to 1.5 degrees or below by the end of the century would require global greenhouse gas emissions to fall by 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040, compared with 2025 levels. Under current policies, the UN calculation shows emissions dropping by up to 8% by 2030 and by up to 15% by 2035, a gap far from the required path. Large amounts of carbon would also have to be removed from the atmosphere, which climate researchers regard as indispensable but which faces major technological hurdles and is disproportionately expensive. Andersen urged all countries to pull out every stop to keep the peak of warming as low as possible and to return to 1.5 degrees by the century's end, saying it is possible.
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The United Nations Environment Programme says current global climate policy points to 2.8 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100. The report's authors cite the full withdrawal of the United States from its earlier climate plans as a main reason the outlook worsened.
AI text based on reports by Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, N-tv and other publishers. Published .