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As UN Environment Programme’s new Overshoot Report says: “While the international community has made progress on climate change, global action to cut greenhouse gas emissions has not been fast enough to avoid global warming crossing 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in the next few years.”
The report says that the best-case scenario is now a peak temperature rise of 1.8°C - assuming all national climate plans and long-term net zero targets are fully implemented. But under current policies, the projected global average temperature could reach 2.6°C by 2100.
Here’s the part that matters most: what happens next is up to us. The duration and the degree of this overshoot beyond the 1.5°C matter enormously.
Yes, we have made progress in tackling the climate crisis. But it is nowhere near enough. Every fraction of a degree, and every year of overshoot, will be measured in countless lives and livelihoods wrecked.
Our best and only option to protect people and economies from devastating climate impacts is to minimize the duration and severity of this overshoot beyond the 1.5°C.
We still have much work to do. We can - and we must – get this job done. But it will take all nations working together, and with private sector leaders, civil society, scientists and other experts, to drive the progress needed.
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