Climate

UNEP: Opportunity has ‘been lost’ to meet 1.5C warming limit without ‘overshoot’

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Briefings

UNEP's 2026 report states that exceeding the 1.5C warming limit is inevitable due to decades of insufficient action, with the current 'overshoot' scenario peaking at 1.7-1.8C by mid-century. Despite a slight global emission decrease from 2024 to 2025, the report identifies a critical opportunity to accelerate action to meet Paris Agreement goals. The report notes that 95% of nations missed their 2035 NDC submission deadlines, with only 63% of countries producing pledges by the end of COP30 in November 2025.

Key points

• The report concludes that global emissions in 2025 were comparable to 2024 levels at 58.4 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent, though the report explicitly states it is not possible to conclude on the overall direction of emissions in 2025 due to provisional figures.
• Emissions from fossil fuels increased slightly between 0.4% and 1.1% in 2025, while methane and nitrous oxide emissions increased at higher rates, though their contribution to the overall trend is considered relatively less significant.

Context

This report serves as the UN Environment Programme's sobering annual assessment of the global emissions gap, identifying a temporary breach as 'inevitable' and framing the task as minimizing overshoot size and establishing a credible return path to 1.5C by the end of the century.

Limitations

The report relies on provisional figures for 2025 emissions, meaning the overall direction of emissions in that year cannot be definitively concluded. Additionally, the report excludes LULUCF emissions from country-level analysis due to lag in national-level inventories, and the 2035 NDC submission deadline was missed by 95% of nations.

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