UN Report: 1.5°C Limit Set to Be Breached, Steep Cuts Needed
The UNEP report projects a peak of 1.7–1.8°C this century even under the most ambitious pathway, while existing policies point to 2.8°C of warming.
A new United Nations Environment Programme assessment finds that global temperatures are now expected to exceed the 1.5°C warming threshold, shifting the focus from prevention to limiting how far and how long temperatures rise above it.
The Emissions Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return outlines a lowest-possible overshoot pathway in which warming peaks around mid-century at 1.7–1.8°C before declining, with roughly a 50 percent chance of returning to or below 1.5°C by 2100. Reaching this path would require greenhouse-gas emissions to fall 18 percent by 2030, 45 percent by 2035, and 69 percent by 2040 relative to 2025 levels, together with substantial carbon-dioxide removal later in the century.Current national pledges fall well short of those rates.
Full implementation of existing Nationally Determined Contributions would reduce emissions only 5–8 percent by 2030 and 11–15 percent by 2035 compared with 2025. Policies already in place point toward about 2.8°C of warming this century. Delivering all submitted pledges would still leave temperatures near 2.6°C, while the most optimistic combination of pledges and net-zero targets reaches only about 2.1°C. These projections are higher than last year's estimates, reflecting the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and revisions to historical emissions data. New plans submitted since the previous report have changed the overall outlook very little.
The United States is identified as an outlier among major economies. While emissions growth slowed across the G20 in 2025, U.S. emissions rose by roughly 133 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent—the largest single-country increase and about 70 percent of the net rise among countries whose emissions grew. The increase is linked to higher electricity demand from expanding data-center capacity and a rebound in coal-fired generation. On a per-capita basis, the United States tied with Russia for the highest emissions among G20 members. Most other large economies either cut emissions or slowed their growth.
Every additional fraction of a degree and every extra year above 1.5°C raises the likelihood of more intense heat, flooding, drought, and wildfire, the report notes. At the same time, renewable energy—especially solar—has expanded faster than many earlier forecasts, and certain policies have already produced measurable emission reductions in specific sectors.
Scaling those results quickly is presented as essential if the lowest-overshoot pathway is to stay within reach.The findings come ahead of the COP31 climate talks in Turkey. The assessment sets out the scale of cuts and carbon removal that would be needed to keep any overshoot as brief and limited as possible, leaving the political response to governments in the months ahead.