UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2026

• The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) released the Emissions Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return in October 2026.
• It finds that the world is now set to temporarily exceed 1.5°C warming above pre-industrial levels, making an immediate pathway that avoids overshoot effectively unavailable.
• However, 1.5°C is not permanently “unattainable”: with very deep emission cuts and large-scale carbon dioxide removal, warming could still be brought back to 1.5°C or below by 2100.

About the Emissions Gap Report

• Published annually by UNEP since 2010.
• Tracks the gap between:
  • projected global greenhouse-gas emissions under existing pledges/policies, and
  • emission levels consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature goals.
• It assesses progress towards keeping warming well below 2°C while pursuing 1.5°C.
• Released annually ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP) to inform climate negotiations.
• Co-produced by UNEP, UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre (UNEP-CCC) and partner institutions.

Key Findings of EGR 2026

Global Emissions Remain Extremely High

• Global GHG emissions in 2025 were around 58.4 GtCO₂e, broadly similar to 2024.
• Some estimates indicate a small decline of around 0.1–0.16 GtCO₂e, but UNEP cautions that this is too small relative to uncertainty to conclude that global emissions have entered a sustained decline.
• More than two-thirds of global GHG emissions originate from fossil-fuel-related CO₂, with the remainder coming from land-use change, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases.

The 1.5°C Overshoot

• The opportunity to keep warming below 1.5°C without, or with only very limited, overshoot has effectively been lost.
• UNEP's lowest-overshoot pathway would see warming:
  • peak at about 1.7–1.8°C around mid-century, and
  • return to 1.5°C or below by 2100, with roughly a 50% probability. These reductions are required to follow UNEP's lowest possible 1.5°C overshoot pathway.

• Increasing Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) would also be necessary later in the century.

NDCs Fall Far Short

• Even if countries fully implement their existing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), global emissions would fall by only:
  • 5–8% by 2030, and
  • 11–15% by 2035, compared with 2025 levels.
• This is far below the required 18% and 45% reductions, respectively.
• Full implementation of current NDCs would still leave the world around a 2.6°C warming trajectory this century.

Sectoral Action Required

The report calls for accelerated progress in:

• Renewable-energy deployment
• Improving energy efficiency / reducing primary-energy intensity
• Reducing the share of coal, oil and gas in global energy supply
• Faster reductions in methane emissions
• Scaling up proven climate policies across countries and sectors.

Why Overshoot Matters

• Every additional fraction of warming increases the risks of:
  • Extreme heat and wildfires
  • Faster sea-level rise
  • Loss of coral reefs and ecosystems
  • Glacier and ice-sheet loss
  • Food and water insecurity
  • Crossing potentially irreversible climate tipping points.

Positive Developments

• Renewable-energy deployment has expanded rapidly since the Paris Agreement.
• Climate policies have already produced measurable emission reductions in several countries and sectors.
• UNEP therefore stresses that the emissions gap can still be narrowed substantially if successful policies are rapidly scaled up globally.

The 1.5°C threshold is now expected to be exceeded temporarily, but the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal is not necessarily permanently lost.The challenge has shifted from avoiding any overshoot to minimising its magnitude and duration and bringing warming back towards 1.5°C through extremely rapid emission cuts and carbon removal.