World set to surpass UN climate goals within 4 years, new report warns

At this pace, researchers said, the world could cross the 1.5C-degree warming limit within four years.

The latest Global Carbon Budget report offers a mixed picture, the authors said, showing that despite growing renewable energy use and declining emissions in some regions, global warming remains on course to intensify.

The report estimates that fossil fuel emissions will increase by 1.1%, reaching 38.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide this year.

“These findings are in line with recent years, showing a regional shift in fossil fuel emissions but with an overall continuing increase,” said Anna Michalak, founding director of the Carnegie Climate and Resilience Hub at the Carnegie Institution for Science, according to The Washington Post.

The report was released as world leaders gathered in Belem, Brazil for the 30th UN Climate Conference (COP30), with the United States notably absent.

“The world has not been able to meet the ambitious goals outlined in the Paris Agreement,” Michalak said, referring to the 2015 treaty aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

A separate report by the International Energy Agency warns that with current global energy policies, the world is on track to warm nearly 3C by 2100.

Even if countries implement their planned stronger clean-energy policies, with coal and oil demand expected to peak by 2030, global warming would still approach 2.5C, the report said.

Renewable energy growth suggests China and the world should be nearing a peak in fossil CO2 emissions, but persistent increases in global energy demand and fossil fuel consumption continue to delay that moment, Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate Research and a Carbon Budget report co-author, told The Washington Post.

“Eventually, emissions will peak. We just don’t know when,” he added.

Peters said countries’ annual emissions trends reflect both weather patterns and energy use.

China’s emissions, after years of rapid growth, have nearly leveled off in the past two years as renewable investments expanded, with a modest 0.4% rise expected this year. India’s emissions are forecast to grow 1.4%, a slower pace partly linked to an early monsoon that reduced cooling demand.

In the EU, emissions ticked back up due to colder weather boosting heating needs and weaker winds cutting wind power output.

US emissions are projected to increase 1.9% after a more typical winter and higher natural gas prices, which drove greater coal use, Peters noted.

Peters said emissions have fallen in more than 35 countries over the past decade despite economic growth, with many developing nations expanding solar and wind power.

Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, a prominent climate scientist and director of the Global Carbon Budget project, acknowledged the urgency.

“We’re running out of time…but we can still see progress.”

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