Overview
- The United Nations Environment Programme published the Emissions Gap Report on Wednesday and concluded that a temporary overshoot of the Paris 1.5°C limit is now imminent and unavoidable.
- UNEP says the best-case overshoot would peak near 1.7–1.8°C by mid-century and has about a 50 percent chance of returning to or below 1.5°C by 2100 under a rapid-action pathway.
- That rapid-action pathway requires global emissions to fall about 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035, and 69% by 2040 relative to 2025 levels.
- The report finds current national pledges would cut emissions only 5–8% by 2030 and 11–15% by 2035 and that existing policies point to roughly 2.8°C of warming this century or about 2.6°C if pledges are fully delivered.
- To bring temperatures back down the UNEP says roughly 320 billion tonnes of CO2 would need to be removed this century, a scale many experts call uncertain even as renewables growth accelerates and leaders are urged to close a political leadership gap ahead of COP31.