UN: world must cut emissions 18% in four years
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The gist
UNEP's Emissions Gap report says the world must cut emissions 18% by 2030 to limit worst warming.
Current pledges would deliver only 5-8%, putting the world on track for about 2.6C.
Background
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the UN body that produces the annual Emissions Gap report, which measures the distance between promised climate action and what science says is needed. This year's edition shifts focus from avoiding 1.5C of warming to recovering from overshooting it, laying out a "lowest possible" overshoot scenario that peaks at 1.7C-1.8C around mid-century and returns to 1.5C by 2100. Co-author Anne Olhoff, director of the UNEP-Copenhagen Climate Centre, said this year's outlook is worse than last year's because of the formal US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and upward revisions of historical emissions. The report lands ahead of November's COP31 climate summit, where political leaders will face the gap it describes.
How it unfolded
- Oct 21, 2026UNEP releases its 2026 Emissions Gap report, finding the world must cut emissions 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 relative to 2025 levels to limit peak warming to 1.7C-1.8C and return to 1.5C by 2100.
- Oct 21, 2026The report says current pledges would deliver only a 5% to 8% cut by 2030, leaving the world on track for about 2.6C of warming; under current policies warming could reach 2.8C this century.
- Oct 21, 2026Preliminary data show 2025 emissions broadly on a par with record 2024 levels, with US emissions up 133 megatons of CO2 equivalent, driven by higher electricity demand and a coal rebound.
- Oct 21, 2026The report says the world has already warmed roughly 1.4C and that crossing 1.5C is expected within a matter of years.
- Oct 22, 2026Coverage reports the world must cut emissions 18% within four years to limit the worst effects of climate change and return warming to 1.5C by 2100.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the world can no longer avoid overshooting 1.5C and called the emissions gap "a leadership gap," urging all countries, especially big emitters, to do more.
- Official
- UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said every extra fraction of a degree raises risks, that an 18% cut by 2030 and 69% by 2040 is the only way back to a largely manageable reality, and that success stories show emissions can be cut quickly.
- Expert
- Report co-author Anne Olhoff said decades of postponing cuts have caught up with the world, which can still meet the Paris goals but must surpass its most ambitious targets.
- Caution
- The US government said in the report that it "does not endorse or agree with its analysis or conclusions, and has not provided comments to this report."
Still unverified
The report says it is uncertain whether pulling roughly 320 gigatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the rest of the century can be achieved, and gives the return to or below 1.5C by 2100 in its lowest-possible scenario only about a 50% chance.