World on Track for 3.1C Warming, UN Report Warns

Cuts of 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 are needed to get on track for 1.5C of warming, the threshold set in the Paris Agreement.

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Nations must collectively commit to slashing emissions by almost half in the next decade for a chance to stay within the Paris Agreement’s global warming threshold, a new United Nations report has warned.

Published Thursday, the Emissions Gap Report looks at how much nations must promise to cut off greenhouse gases, and deliver, in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – national plans for emissions reduction that each signatory to the Paris Agreement is required to set up and update every five years. The next submissions are due in early 2025.

Current pledges put the world on track for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1C over the course of this century, according to the report. The UN warned that cuts of 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 are needed to get on track for 1.5C of warming. For a 2C pathway, emissions must fall 28% by 2030 and 37% by 2035 from 2019 levels.

The report argues that the 1.5C goal is still technically feasible, owing to increased deployment of solar and wind energy. Renewable energy currently accounts for little over 30% of global electricity and the world is set to add over 5,500 gigawatts of new renewable capacity in the next five years, outpacing governments goals. This massive growth could deliver up to 27% of the total reduction potential in 2030 and 38% in 2035, the UN says.

But delivering on even some of this potential will require unprecedented international mobilization and cooperation and a whole-of-government approach, the UN argues. Rich nations, responsible for by far the largest share of global emissions, “must do the heavy lifting.”

This is particularly true for G20 nations, which despite accounting for 77% of global emissions last year (excluding the African Union), are still far off track to meet even current NDCs.

‘Climate Meltdown’

The critical 1.5C threshold was established at the 2015 COP21 climate summit, when 196 parties signed the legally binding Paris Agreement. They agreed to keep limiting global warming to below 1.5C or “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Beyond this limit, experts warn that critical tipping points will be breached, leading to devastating and potentially irreversible consequences for several vital Earth systems that sustain a hospitable planet.

“Another year passed without action means we’re worse off,” said Anne Olhoff, a climate policy expert based in Denmark and a co-author of the assessment.

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So far, the world has warmed by 1.3C compared to pre-industrial times, though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that 20-40% of the global human population live in regions that, by the decade 2006-2015, had already experienced warming of more than 1.5C in at least one season. According to the UN body, every 0.5C (0.9F) of global warming will cause discernible increases in the frequency and severity of heat extremes, heavy rainfall events, and regional droughts.

People around the world are already paying a “terrible price,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “Record emissions mean record sea temperatures supercharging monster hurricanes; record heat is turning forests into tinder boxes and cities into saunas; record rains are resulting in biblical floods.”

In February 2024, scientists warned that the world’s average temperatures had been higher than the 1.5C global warming limit for 12 consecutive months for the first time in recorded history. While this does not signal a permanent breach of the critical limit, which scientists say is measured over decades, it sends a clear warning to humanity that we are approaching the point of no return much faster than expected.

The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the primary drivers of global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature. Global fossil fuel consumption has more than doubled in the last 50 years, as countries around the world aim to improve their standards of living and economic output. In 2023, all three of the most potent GHGs – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record highs.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has urged countries to halt new gas and oil field projects, arguing that this is the only way to keep the 1.5C-compatible net-zero emissions scenario alive.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in September, Guterres warned: “We are in a climate meltdown. Extreme temperatures, raging fires, droughts, and epic floods are not natural disasters. They are human disasters – increasingly fuelled by fossil fuels. No country is spared. But the poorest and most vulnerable are hardest hit.”

In less than three weeks, some 30,000 people, including world leaders, diplomats and civil society representatives, will gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the year’s most important summit – COP29. Over two weeks, delegations will need to find solutions to the pressing challenges posed by climate change, including ways to finance transition to clean energy and setting other important goals.

“Today’s Emissions Gap report is clear: we’re playing with fire; but there can be no more playing for time. We’re out of time,” said Guterres. “Closing the emissions gap means closing the ambition gap, the implementation gap, and the finance gap. Starting at COP29.”

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