World must cut emissions 18% in four years to find a way back below 1.5°C – UN 2026 Emissions Gap Report
The United Nations reports that countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18% by 2030 and 45% by 2035 relative to 2025 levels. These deep cuts are necessary to prevent global heating from staying far above 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to the UN Environment Programme, crossing the 1.5 degree mark is now imminent and unavoidable due to years of weak action. If reductions begin immediately, warming may peak between 1.7 and 1.8 degrees Celsius by mid-century. There would then be an even chance of returning to 1.5 degrees by 2100. UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that overshooting this limit is not the same as surrendering.
Countries must slash greenhouse gas emissions by almost a fifth (18%) by 2030 and 45% by 2035, compared with 2025 levels. Only then can they stop global heating from running far past 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) and bring it back down by the end of the century, the United Nations said on Wednesday. In its annual Emissions Gap Report, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said decades of weak action had made crossing 1.5°C "imminent and unavoidable". If deep cuts start now, warming could peak at about 1.7–1.8°C around the middle of the century, with roughly an even chance of falling back to 1.5°C by 2100. "Overshoot is not surrender," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a message on the report. "We can still keep it as small and as short as possible."