UNEP Warns World Still ‘Off Track’ as Global Warming Set to Hit 2.5°C This Century

Global temperatures are now predicted to rise between 2.3 and 2.5 degrees Celsius this century if countries fully implement their national climate pledges, down slightly from 2.6-2.8 degrees Celsius projected last year, according to a new report.

However, according to the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report 2025, existing policies would still keep the planet on a trajectory of 2.8 degrees Celsius of warming, rather than the 3.1 degrees Celsius predicted last year.

The globe is still "off target" to fulfil the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the report, which attributed the little improvement primarily to methodological revisions and recent state commitments.

It warns that the global multi-decadal temperature average will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next decade, at least temporarily, unless countries act rapidly to limit the overshoot to around 0.3 degrees Celsius and bring temperatures down by 2100.

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, said, "Nations have had three attempts to deliver promises made under the Paris Agreement, and each time they have landed off target. While national climate plans have delivered some progress, it is nowhere near fast enough, which is why we still need unprecedented emissions cuts in an increasingly tight window, with an increasingly challenging geopolitical backdrop."

Released just days before world leaders gather for UN climate talks, the report has found that only a third of the 195 Parties to the Paris Agreement, ”covering 63 per cent of global emissions, ”submitted new or updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) this year.

It also made clear that the G20 bloc, which accounts for almost 77% of global emissions, is not on track to meet even its 2030 commitments, much less the more significant 2035 reductions required to stabilise world temperatures.

According to the research, global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record 57.7 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2024, up 2.3% from the year before.

More than half of this increase was caused by deforestation and changes in land use, but emissions from fossil fuels still kept rising. The European Union was the only large economy to witness a decrease in emissions, while China and India, two of the top emitters in the world, saw the biggest absolute rises.

UNEP warned that to limit the overshoot and give the world the best chance of returning to 1.5 degrees C by the end of the century, global emissions must fall by 26 per cent by 2030 and 46 per cent by 2035 compared to 2019 levels.

Climate experts described the report's findings as a wake-up call ahead of the next round of negotiations.

Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists called the data "alarming, enraging and heartbreaking", blaming "years of insufficient action from richer nations and continued obstruction by fossil fuel interests".

Richard Black, Director of Policy and Strategy at Ember, said national renewable energy plans "paint a more optimistic picture" of the clean energy transition, while Catherine Abreu of the International Climate Policy Hub stressed that "it isn't the Paris Agreement that's failing,” it's a handful of powerful G20 countries who are failing to do what they've promised".

Despite modest progress, UNEP concluded that without swift and large-scale emissions cuts, the world risks locking in catastrophic levels of warming that will "hit the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest".