UN warns climate overshoot may be inevitable, urges rapid emissions cuts
The UN Environment Programme says the 1.5 °C target is now out of reach and stresses that swift, deep emissions reductions are needed to limit the duration and magnitude of climate overshoot.
The United Nations Environment Programme’s 2026 Emissions Gap Report, titled “The point of return,” warns that the world has already surpassed the 1.5 °C guardrail and is heading toward even higher warming, driven by an El Niño amplified by fossil-fuel emissions. Inger Andersen, UNEP’s executive director, says the Paris target’s window has closed but insists that abandoning mitigation is not an option; instead, rapid, deep cuts are required to keep any overshoot brief.
Secretary-General António Guterres adds that limiting overshoot is possible if emissions are reduced sharply, while experts caution that carbon-dioxide removal technologies are costly, with estimates of $22 trillion to lower temperatures by a tenth of a degree. The report highlights recent climate-related fatalities, including thousands killed by a Himalayan glacier collapse and over 50,000 deaths from European heatwaves, underscoring the urgency. While carbon removal may play a role, scientists stress it cannot replace emissions cuts, and the prospect of geoengineering—such as solar radiation management—raises additional risks and ethical questions.
Why it matters
It signals that meeting the 1.5 °C goal now requires unprecedented emissions cuts and raises debate over costly carbon removal and geoengineering.
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