The target set in 2015 by the Paris Agreement—to limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2100—has become unachievable within the span of a single decade, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) notes in its 2026 Emissions Gap Report.
“The opportunity to bridge the 1.5°C emissions gap with ‘no or limited’ overshoot has been lost,” states the report, titled “The Point of Return.”
Exceeding the 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels is now imminent and inevitable.
“Every additional fraction of a degree and additional year of warming above 1.5°C raises the risk of irreversible changes including in ice sheets, permafrost carbon, ocean circulation and coral systems, along with devastating human impacts,” the report states.
