UNEP: 1.5°C limit irreversibly breached, deep cuts could still cap peak at 1.7-1.8°C

Holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is no longer achievable, the United Nations Environment Programme said in its Emissions Gap Report 2026, released on 21 October. The chance of keeping overshoot below 0.1 degrees Celsius has been lost.

UNEP now measures progress against a 'lowest possible overshoot' scenario. Under it, peak warming stays at 1.7 to 1.8 degrees Celsius with a 66 percent probability, and temperatures return to or below 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 with around a 50 percent chance.

Reaching that path requires global emissions to fall 18 percent by 2030, 45 percent by 2035 and 69 percent by 2040 from 2025 levels — an average of 5.7 percent a year. It also depends on removing roughly 320 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere this century, which UNEP describes as uncertain to achieve.

New national pledges would cut emissions only 5 to 8 percent by 2030 and 11 to 15 percent by 2035. If current policies remain unchanged, temperatures could rise by 2.8 degrees Celsius this century and continue climbing. Full implementation of existing national climate commitments under the Paris Agreement would still produce 2.6 degrees Celsius of warming — both figures higher than last year's projections, partly because of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said every additional fraction of a degree increases climate impacts such as floods, heatwaves and wildfires. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the report shows what it will take to keep the overshoot as small and short as possible.