Society and technology·since 11 Jun·6 entries
Paris 1.5°C limit: warming projections
UNEP now says the 1.5°C limit will be overshot, and a 73-researcher consortium puts the breach around 2030, while IPCC governments have no agreed date for the next assessment.
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This week3 entries
State of playyesterday
Overshoot Acknowledged
UNEP's 2026 Emissions Gap Report says limiting warming to 1.5°C is now temporarily impossible. Current policies would produce 2.8°C by 2100. Emissions would need to fall 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 from 2025 levels to return to 1.5°C by century's end.
A consortium of 73 researchers puts human-caused warming at 1.37°C in 2025 and projects the threshold will be crossed around 2030. The World Meteorological Organization warns that a building El Niño could push Pacific sea temperatures up to 3.8 degrees above the long-term average.
Impacts and Institutions
Two Nature Health studies estimate 50,391 heat deaths across 854 urban areas in 30 European countries from June to August 2026, about two-thirds attributed to climate change. The IUCN rates 96% of shallow coral reefs critically endangered.
IPCC governments ended their 12–16 October Addis Ababa session without a timetable or budget for the Seventh Assessment Report. UN climate talks open on 9 November, where governments' response to the UNEP 18% cut by 2030 is the first test.
What comes next
- in 16 daysUN climate talks open; first test of responses to the UNEP pathway
Open questions
- Will the WMO or a UN body adopt the consortium's roughly 2030 breach estimate as a formal negotiating baseline?
- Will any government change its 1.5°C position in response to the study?
Who is who8
UNEP UN Environment Programme
Says the 1.5°C limit can no longer be held without overshoot and calls for emissions cuts of 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 from 2025 levels.
23 Oct
International consortium of 73 climate researchers Authors of the climate indicators update
Finds human-caused warming at 1.37°C in 2025 and projects the 1.5°C limit will be passed around 2030.
17 Oct
IPCC UN climate science body
Ended its 12-16 October Addis Ababa meeting without agreeing a timetable for the Seventh Assessment Report or a budget.
19 Oct
Jim Skea IPCC Chair
Said governments would reconvene at the earliest opportunity.
19 Oct
Saudi Arabia, India and China IPCC member states
Back publication in 2029 to absorb more developing-country science and data.
19 Oct
World Meteorological Organization UN weather and climate agency
Warns the El Niño now building in the Pacific could push sea temperatures up to 3.8 degrees above the long-term average.
21 Oct
IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature
Rates 96% of shallow coral reefs critically endangered, with an extremely high risk of collapse by 2075 from heat stress.
22 Oct
António Guterres UN Secretary-General
Has called the world dangerously short on climate action.
22 Oct
Chronicle6 entries since 11 Jun
19–25 October3 entries
Two peer-reviewed Nature Health studies estimate 50,391 heat deaths across 854 urban areas in 30 countries between June and August 2026. About two-thirds are attributed to climate change, putting a European mortality figure on the warming trend.
The IUCN's first global reef assessment, covering 127 reef regions in more than 80 countries and territories, finds heat stress from climate change gives nearly all shallow coral reefs an extremely high risk of collapse by 2075.
UNEP's 2026 Emissions Gap Report says the 1.5°C limit is temporarily out of reach. It projects 2.8°C by 2100 under current policies and calls for emissions cuts of 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 from 2025 levels.
12–18 October2 entries
An international consortium of 73 researchers updated key climate indicators, finding human-caused warming at 1.37°C in 2025. The group projects the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C limit will be passed around 2030, about four years from now.
IPCC member states closed their 12–16 October meeting in Addis Ababa without consensus on the release schedule for the Seventh Assessment Report or on the budget. Saudi Arabia, India and China back 2029, while many others want publication before the 2028 UN climate summit.
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