How much must the world cut emissions to return to 1.5°C?
The Emissions Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return, published on October 21, outlines a scenario in which global temperatures peak at 1.7°C to 1.8°C above preindustrial levels around midcentury before returning to 1.5°C or below by 2100. The scenario has about a 50% chance of success.
The required cuts are measured against 2025 emissions levels. Emissions would also need to fall 69% by 2040, the report says.
Current national climate pledges fall far short. Even if countries fully implement their existing commitments, emissions would decline by only 5% to 8% by 2030 and 11% to 15% by 2035.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said the world could still limit the scale and duration of warming above 1.5°C.
Under current policies, global warming could reach 2.8°C this century and continue rising afterward, the report warns.
If countries meet their existing climate pledges and maintain similar efforts, warming could reach 2.6°C. Even if they fulfill their pledges and achieve additional net zero targets, temperatures would still rise by about 2.1°C.
Every 5 years of continued CO2 emissions at current levels could add about 0.1°C to peak warming, the report estimates.
Returning to 1.5°C would also require removing and permanently storing around 320 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere over the course of this century. That is equivalent to roughly 8 years of global CO2 emissions at 2024 levels. The report cautions that technological and economic challenges make achieving this uncertain.
Renewable energy
Despite the gap between current efforts and the required cuts, UNEP points to progress since the adoption of the Paris Agreement.
Renewable energy has expanded rapidly, coal and oil supplies have grown more slowly than previously projected, and climate policies have reduced emissions in several countries and sectors.
An assessment of more than 220 policy evaluations found that electricity sector policies reduced emissions by an average of 9%. Economic measures, including carbon taxes and emissions trading systems, cut emissions by 5% to 13% across the sectors studied.
However, these gains remain concentrated in particular countries, sectors and periods. Governments need to expand and sustain successful measures to achieve the necessary global reductions, the report says.
New targets for 2035 and 2040
To align with the lowest possible 1.5°C overshoot scenario, global renewable electricity capacity would need to reach at least three times its 2025 level by 2035 and 4.5 times that level by 2040.
Over the same period, the energy intensity of global economic output would need to fall by at least 30% by 2035 and 40% by 2040, relative to 2025.
The report also calls for major cuts in fossil fuel use. By 2035, the shares of coal, oil and gas in total global energy supply would need to fall by at least 55%, 15% and 5%, respectively, compared with 2025. By 2040, the required reductions would reach 75%, 30% and 35%.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that more than half of the estimated heat-related deaths in 854 European cities between 2000 and 2025 were attributable to human-induced climate change.
