The UN Environment Programme’s annual report says the 1.5°C limit can no longer be held without a period above it. National pledges would deliver 5–8% emissions cuts by 2030; its best remaining path needs 18%.
The United Nations now says the world will go past 1.5°C of warming, and that the pledges countries have made are not close to bringing it back down. In its Emissions Gap Report, published on 21 October, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says the chance of holding the limit with little or no overshoot “has now been lost”, in the words Carbon Brief quotes from the report.12
What remains is a narrower aim: let warming peak at about 1.7–1.8°C in the middle of the century, then bring it back to 1.5°C by 2100. That path needs global emissions to fall 18% by 2030 and 45% by 2035, measured from 2025. Pledges, if met in full, would cut them by 5–8% and 11–15%.23
The timing matters. The COP31 climate conference opens in Antalya, Türkiye, on 9 November, and the second Global Stocktake, the UN’s review of collective progress, begins there.17 UNEP is asking governments to use it to set clearer targets for 2035 and 2040. This follows the 11 October Noodle News report that emissions rose again in 2025 even as the yearly climb in atmospheric carbon dioxide slowed.
UNEP’s projections are worse than last year’s for two reasons it gives. The United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, which raised its estimate of 2035 emissions by about 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. And estimates of past emissions were revised up.2 Central warming estimates for the pledge scenarios are 0.2–0.3°C higher than in the 2025 edition.2
The deeper cause is that the clock has run. Earlier 1.5°C paths assumed cuts starting around 2020, and emissions have since been roughly flat: provisionally 58.4 billion tonnes in 2025, about 0.16 billion below 2024.24 Every five years at today’s level adds about 0.1°C to peak warming, lead author Anne Olhoff said.4 The US was the exception to flat: its emissions rose by 133 million tonnes in 2025 on higher electricity demand and a rebound in coal power, UNEP found.2
New pledges have changed little. By 1 September, 124 countries covering 75% of emissions had submitted 2035 targets, and fully met they would trim 2035 emissions by 3.5 billion tonnes against the 2030 targets.2 The Climate Action Tracker, an independent analysis group, reached the same verdict last November: the new 2035 targets “make no difference” to its roughly 2.6°C projection.5 UNEP says the narrowing of the 2030 gap reflects “policy changes, not policy progress”, chiefly the US exit.2
UNEP’s head, Inger Andersen, pointed to energy security. Governments hit by energy shocks from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are leaning on fossil fuels, she said, and she asked what the plan is for renewables if old coal is recommissioned.4
Andersen’s point is about duration as well as height: each extra year above 1.5°C adds to climate impacts and risks.1 That is why the size of the overshoot, not only whether it happens, is now the target. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, put it as “Overshoot is not surrender”, and called the emissions gap “a leadership gap”.14
On today’s policies, UNEP puts warming in 2100 at 2.8°C, with a one-in-ten chance of passing 3.4°C. Even delivering every pledge leaves 2.6°C.2 The gap in tonnes is large: by the desk’s arithmetic, the 2035 shortfall between pledges and the best remaining path is roughly 17–20 billion tonnes a year, on a global total of about 58 billion.
Getting back below 1.5°C also depends on pulling carbon dioxide out of the air. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), which contributed to the report, puts the need at about 320 billion tonnes over the century, roughly eight years of 2024’s carbon dioxide emissions.3 UNEP says it is uncertain whether that can be done at scale.4
There is good news inside the report. Renewable capacity has grown three times faster than expected since the Paris Agreement, and solar seven times faster, PBL says, and energy-related carbon dioxide rose 40% less than projected.23 The US government statement included in the report says it “does not endorse or agree with” its analysis or conclusions, and the Trump administration will not take part in Antalya.4
Whether the large-scale carbon removal the best path relies on can be delivered; UNEP itself flags the doubt. Whether COP31 produces anything beyond restating existing pledges. The report was not directly retrievable for this piece, so the 320 billion tonne removal figure rests on PBL and the Associated Press, and Carbon Brief’s summary does not give it.
COP31 runs from 9 to 20 November in Antalya.7 Türkiye hosts, and Australia, through its climate minister Chris Bowen, leads the negotiations.6 UNEP’s ask of the Stocktake is to extend quantified goals to 2035 and 2040 and tighten targets, including tripling renewable capacity by 2030.1 The test is whether the conference text goes beyond the 2035 pledges already on the table.