UN Emissions Gap Report: Why the 1.5°C Climate Goal Is No Longer Attainable

UN Signatories established a 1.5°C target to limit climate change risks. Nations have submitted successive pledges to cut greenhouse-gas emissions since 2015. Initial estimates indicate that 2025 global emissions remained level or fell slightly compared to 2024. Scientists report that this pace fails to shift the long-term path of global temperature rises. Meeting the 1.5°C target would now require "overshooting" the goal in the short term, followed by large-scale carbon removal in the latter half of the century.

1. Clean energy adoption outpaced the projections made in 2015. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported that clean-energy capacity expanded three times faster than its 2015 forecast. Solar energy deployment grew seven times faster than those same projections.

2. Global greenhouse-gas emissions showed signs of stabilization. Emissions remained flat between 2024 and 2025. Researchers suggest this trend marks the first sustained decline since the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. The report projects a decline in emissions by 2030. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates global emissions will fall by 5 to 8 percent by 2030, compared to 2025 levels.

4. Initial estimates published in Nature show that global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2025 remained stable or fell slightly from 2024 levels.

1. The United Nations (UN) reported on October 24, 2024, that the 1.5°C warming target is unattainable. The latest "Emissions Gap Report" shows that current trajectories make this threshold impossible to reach. The document suggests a shift toward overshooting the goal. This strategy requires large-scale carbon removal later in the century.

2. Current government policies are insufficient to prevent significant warming. Even if all existing emissions pledges are fully met, the report projects the world will still experience 2.1°C of warming by the end of the century.

3. Researchers estimate a 10% probability that global temperatures will exceed 3.4°C under current emissions trajectories. The study notes this probability remains lower than the central estimate.

4. A report published in Nature projects that global temperatures will exceed the 1.5°C warming threshold in 2026. This marks the second year that temperatures have surpassed that level.