PARIS, Oct 21, 2026 (Net) – Global commitments to cut planet-heating
emissions are falling far short of the Paris climate goals and put the world
on course for 2.6C warming this century, the UN warned Wednesday.
The report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) lays bare the
chasm between rhetoric and action when it comes to tackling global warming,
and the challenges faced by political leaders at November’s COP31 climate
summit.
Even if countries deliver their latest climate pledges in full, global
temperatures could still rise 2.6C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, said
the annual Emissions Gap Report.
That would blow past the historic goal agreed in 2015 in Paris: keeping
warming well below 2C while striving for a safer 1.5C. Any chance of keeping
to 1.5C had been “lost” due to decades of insufficient action, the report
said.
“The world can no longer avoid overshooting the 1.5 degree limit, and the
consequences are already devastating,” said UN chief Antonio Guterres in a
statement to launch the closely watched report.
“Deadly floods, brutal heatwaves, raging wildfires, lost lives, crippled
economies, deepening inequalities, and those least responsible are suffering
first and worst.”
Overall, global greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 were broadly on a par with
record levels in 2024, with the difference between the two years too small to
call, the report said.
Carbon emissions just from burning coal, oil and gas — the main driver of
climate change — rose slightly in 2025 compared to the previous year.
Guterres said deep and immediate cuts were needed to protect humanity from
worsening impacts, but instead “emissions remain at record levels. And
national climate plans and current policies fall dangerously short”.
Sticking just with current policies would see warming hit 2.8C by the end of
the century, the report said.
– No country immune –
Scientists warn that every additional fraction of a degree above 1.5C
increases extreme weather events and the likelihood of irreversible changes
to the planet, from dying coral reefs to melting permafrost.
The world has already warmed roughly 1.4C relative to pre-industrial times,
and crossing 1.5C is expected in a matter of years.
This latest UNEP warming outlook is worse than last year’s because of the
formal withdrawal of the United States from the Paris accord and upward
revisions of historical emissions, said report co-author Anne Olhoff.
Emissions growth slowed among the G20, but the United States was a “major
exception”, it added.
The Group of 20 major economies accounts for three-quarters of global
emissions.
Among the world’s top six emitters, preliminary data for 2025 showed
emissions increases in the United States, Indonesia and China, and decreases
in India, Russia and the European Union.
But the US increase of 133 megatons of CO2 equivalent “far exceeded” that of
any other country, driven by higher electricity demand and a rebound of coal
power generation.
The next-largest increase was recorded in Turkey, which is hosting the UN
climate summit in Antalya from November 9 to 20.
The US is the world’s second-largest polluter, behind China. US President
Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax and rolled back clean energy
policies while boosting fossil fuel production.
UNEP executive secretary Inger Andersen told AFP she would not put the blame
“squarely on one nation”, saying every country, especially the G20, has “a
specific duty to find a way to phase down their carbon emissions”.
To limit the overshoot beyond 1.5C, Andersen said the world has an “urgent
to-do item”: adding another 5,000 gigawatts of renewable energy over the next
five years.
But on the same day the report came out, Britain’s Labour government approved
drilling in a new North Sea gas field to boost energy security amid the Iran
war, angering environmentalists.
Andersen said such projects are “not in accord” with the 1.5C goal.
– ‘Historic failure’ –
The report details a scenario with a 50-percent chance of bringing global
warming back down to 1.5C by 2100.
To get there, warming must peak around 1.8C by 2050, and vast amounts of
carbon dioxide would have to be removed from the atmosphere to bring
temperatures down further.
But this scenario assumes immediate emissions cuts of six percent per year,
every year, until 2035 — nowhere near current projections.
Some climate-vulnerable developing nations have accused bigger emitters of
abandoning the Paris goals, and a showdown over the 1.5C target is expected
at COP31.
“This is a historic failure of political leadership,” said Mohamed Adow,
director of Kenya-based think tank Power Shift Africa.
“The science has been clear for decades, but governments have chosen delay
over action. The consequences will be measured in lives lost, not just
degrees of warming.”
