Breach of 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature threshold now ‘unavoidable’, says Emissions Gap Report

Why in the News

Global climate assessments have moved from holding that a narrow window to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius was still open to accepting that crossing it is now “unavoidable”. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says so in its annual Emissions Gap Report, and sets a new task: keep warming well below 2 degrees Celsius and bring it back to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.

What does the Emissions Gap Report now say?

1. What it is: UNEP’s yearly check of how far world emissions are from the Paris path, released before each year-end climate conference. It works like a report card comparing marks scored with marks needed.
2. The Paris goal: The Paris Agreement (2015) aims to hold warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels. The report says decades of insufficient climate action make exceeding it unavoidable.
3. Lost option: The chance to stay within 1.5 degrees, or to allow only a limited overshoot (crossing the limit for a time before coming back under it), has been lost.
4. Managing the overshoot: Countries must now limit how long and how far warming stays above 1.5 degrees, and set a credible path back below it.
5. The takeaway: The aim shifts from preventing a breach of the limit to managing and reversing one.

How has the scientific consensus shifted?

1. Best case at 1.8 degrees: UNEP’s Limiting Overshoot report, released last month, found that even the best case now takes warming to at least 1.8 degrees Celsius.
2. Return path in question: The open question is whether countries’ actions can pull warming back to 1.5 degrees after that peak, sometime in the second half of this century.
3. First admission: The Limiting Overshoot and Emissions Gap reports are the first authoritative climate reports to accept that a breach of 1.5 degrees is inevitable.
4. IPCC’s earlier view: Most assessments until now, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)‘s, held that a narrow, shrinking window remained if countries acted faster.

Who is driving emissions, and where are they heading?

1. Falling priority: Climate change has slipped down the international agenda, particularly since the current US President’s second term began last year.
2. United States: The second biggest emitter added more than 133 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (all greenhouse gases counted by warming effect) in 2025, the largest rise anywhere.
3. China and India: Emissions grew in China as well. At least one dataset shows India, the world’s third largest emitter, slowing marginally.
4. Global total: Worldwide emissions stayed close to the previous year’s level, at about 58.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
5. Uncertain direction: Some datasets show a fall of about 0.1 billion tonnes, smaller than the margin of error, so the 2025 trend cannot be called.

Challenges

1. Reversing the peak: Pulling warming back down needs emissions to fall steeply, not merely stop rising.
2. Rising big-emitter output: The two largest emitters, China and the United States, both increased their emissions last year.
3. Finance gap: Steeper cuts in developing economies depend on climate finance from richer countries, which remains short of what is needed.

Way Forward

1. Stronger national plans: Countries should raise their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the national climate plans filed under the Paris Agreement, at the coming climate conference.
2. Credible return pathways: Governments should set out how they will bring warming back down after the peak, as the report asks.
3. Faster emissions data: National inventories should report sooner and more precisely, so the global trend is known.

Conclusion

The Paris temperature goal has moved from a limit to be defended to a level the world must return to after crossing it. What to watch is whether the year-end climate conference produces national plans strong enough to make that return credible.

Key numbers

1. Emissions growth since 2016: 0.8% a year (Emissions Gap Report).
2. Emissions growth, 1990 to 2016: 1.7% a year.

Back2Basics: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

1. What it is: The UN body that sets the global environmental agenda and coordinates environmental work across the UN.
2. When it was created: In 1972, after the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm that year.
3. Headquarters: Nairobi, Kenya, making it the first UN agency headquartered in a developing country.
4. Other assessments: Besides the Emissions Gap Report, it publishes the Adaptation Gap Report and the Global Environment Outlook.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2016] The term ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’ is sometimes seen in the news in the context of (a) pledges made by the European countries to rehabilitate refugees from the war-affected Middle East (b) plan of action outlined by the countries of the world to combat climate change (c) capital contributed by the member countries in the establishment of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (d) plan of action outlined by the countries of the world regarding Sustainable Development Goals ANSWER: (b)”