UN Report: 1.5°C Limit Will Be Breached, and Emissions Must Fall 18% by 2030 to Cap Peak Warming at 1.7-1.8°C

The world will exceed 1.5°C of warming, and the only open question is how far and for how long. That is the central finding of the Emissions Gap Report 2026, subtitled "The Point of Return," published today, Oct. 21, by the UN Environment Programme.

It is the first edition whose authors call missing the target "imminent and unavoidable," according to CNN's reporting on the launch. Past editions expressed skepticism. This one drops it.

What the overshoot path requires

The report's "lowest possible" overshoot scenario caps peak warming at 1.7°C to 1.8°C around mid-century. Temperatures would then fall back to 1.5°C or below by 2100, with about a 50% chance of getting there.

The cuts needed, measured against 2025 levels:

• 18% by 2030
• 45% by 2035
• 69% by 2040

The report also says the path requires tripling renewable electricity capacity by 2035, phasing out coal by 2040, and removing large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere to bring temperatures back down.

What countries have actually pledged

Fully implementing current national climate pledges, known as NDCs, would cut emissions by only 5% to 8% by 2030 and 11% to 15% by 2035. New pledges submitted since last year's report "have hardly made a difference," UN News said in its summary of the findings.

If countries deliver those pledges and keep up similar efforts, warming reaches 2.6°C this century. Under policies currently in place, it reaches 2.8°C and keeps rising afterward. A separate scenario in which every pledge and net-zero target is met in full yields 2.1°C.

These projections are worse than last year's. The report attributes that to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and to revised estimates of historical emissions.

Emissions flat, but not a peak

Global greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 totaled 58.4 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. That is about 0.16 billion tonnes below 2024, and the report says the uncertainty around that number is high.

Because the 2025 figures are provisional, the report says it is "not possible to conclude on the overall direction of emissions in 2025." Guardian reporting on the launch says UNEP analysts were wary of calling it a peak or plateau.

Growth has slowed over time. Emissions rose an average of 1.7% a year from 1990 to 2015 and 0.8% a year since 2016. Fossil-fuel CO2 rose between 0.4% and 1.1% in 2025. A drop in land-use emissions, partly from fewer wildfires after El Niño conditions ceased, slightly more than offset it.

Among the six biggest emitters, only the United States saw a notable increase in 2025. U.S. emissions rose by 133 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent on higher electricity demand and a rebound in coal power. The report cites a colder winter, higher gas prices and rising power demand as likely market factors. Emissions in China, the EU, India, Russia and Indonesia were relatively flat.

The ongoing "super" El Niño is likely to push land-use emissions back up in 2026, according to the report.

Reactions and the case for continuing

UN Secretary-General António Guterres framed the finding as a call to keep going. "Overshoot is not surrender," he said. "We can still keep it as small and as short as possible, and bring temperatures back below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century."

UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen was blunter about the past. "It's now clear the herculean effort was not made. We procrastinated, and now we are saying this window has closed," she told reporters. She added that "this is possible."

The report points to progress since 2015: renewables have boomed, coal and oil supply have grown more slowly than projected, and climate policies have cut emissions in many places.

Bill Hare, chief executive of the Climate Analytics think tank, aimed at fossil fuel producers. He said the United States and Saudi Arabia, which together produce 20% to 25% of global fossil fuels, are "looking at the fire, denying it exists and pouring more petrol on it."

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not part of the report, said each added fraction of a degree has an "immense" impact "as measured in terms of damage, cost and loss of lives."

A local example of the gap

Ireland's numbers show how far targets sit from results. Provisional figures from the country's Environmental Protection Agency show emissions fell 2.2% in 2025. They are still only 14.5% below 2018 levels, against a legally binding target of 51% by 2030. The agency says Ireland would now need cuts of more than 10% every year to hit it.

This summer was also Ireland's hottest on record, with a national average of 16.28°C.

What comes next

Governments meet at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, next month. The second Global Stocktake of Paris Agreement progress begins there. The report urges negotiators to extend quantified goals to 2035 and 2040, and says progress on most goals from the first stocktake, held from 2021 to 2023, remains insufficient.

The test in Antalya is whether any delegation brings a pledge that moves the 5% to 8% figure toward 18%. The report says the new pledges so far have not.