The UN Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report 2026, published on 21 October, finds that even if every national climate pledge is met, the world is heading for about 2.6°C of warming this century. For the first time, the report’s central message is not how to stay below 1.5°C, but how to overshoot it as little and as briefly as possible. India is among the few major emitters whose emissions fell in 2025.
For a decade, the UN Environment Programme’s annual Emissions Gap Report has measured the distance between what countries promise and what science says is needed to hold global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The 2026 edition, subtitled The Point of Return, concedes that the gap can no longer be closed in time.
“The world can no longer avoid overshooting the 1.5 degree limit,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, as reported by AFP. “Overshoot is not surrender. We can still keep it as small and as short as possible.”
The projections
According to UNEP, warming under current policies could reach 2.8°C this century and continue rising after 2100. If all countries fully implement their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), the pledges made under the Paris Agreement, warming would reach about 2.6°C. Even in the most optimistic case, with all NDCs and all net-zero targets delivered, warming would be about 2.1°C.
These projections are worse than last year’s. UNEP attributes the deterioration to the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and to upward revisions of historical emissions estimates. New NDCs submitted since the last report make a negligible difference, it says. Report co-author Anne Olhoff said the outlook was worse than last year’s for both reasons.
What a return to 1.5°C requires
The report’s central scenario is the “lowest possible” overshoot. Peak warming would be held to about 1.7–1.8°C around the middle of the century, before falling back to 1.5°C or below by 2100, with roughly a 50% chance of success. That requires greenhouse-gas emissions to fall, relative to 2025 levels, by:
- 18% by 2030
- 45% by 2035
- 69% by 2040
That is a reduction of about 5.7% a year between 2025 and 2035, faster than the roughly 5% a year in the pathways assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Sixth Assessment Report. By contrast, full delivery of current NDCs would cut emissions by only 5–8% by 2030 and 11–15% by 2035.
Bringing temperatures back down also requires removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. UNEP estimates that about 320 gigatonnes of CO₂ would need to be removed and permanently stored over the century, roughly eight years of global CO₂ emissions at 2024 levels. It acknowledges that socioeconomic and technological barriers make this uncertain. Each further five years of emissions at current levels adds about 0.1°C to peak warming, so the overshoot pathway itself is closing quickly.
The sectoral benchmarks
The report translates the pathway into concrete targets. Relative to 2025:
- Coal: its share of total energy supply down at least 55% by 2035 and 75% by 2040; coal-fired electricity down at least 75% by 2035 and effectively phased out globally by 2040.
- Oil and gas: oil down at least 15% by 2035 and 30% by 2040; gas down at least 5% and 35%.
- Methane: at least 25% below 2025 levels by 2035 and 40% by 2040.
- Renewables: at least triple renewable electricity capacity by 2035 and reach 4.5 times by 2040, with primary energy intensity of GDP cut by 30% and 40% respectively.
There is some good news. Since the Paris Agreement, global renewable capacity has grown three times faster than anticipated, and solar photovoltaics seven times faster. If those trends continue with further policy support, UNEP says, the 2030 goal of tripling renewable capacity is within reach. A review of more than 220 policy evaluations found that electricity-sector policies cut emissions by an average of 9%, and carbon pricing by 5–13%.
Emissions in 2025
AFP reports that, according to preliminary UNEP data, total global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2025 were roughly level with the record set in 2024, too close to call, while fossil CO₂ emissions rose slightly. Among the six largest emitters, emissions fell in India, Russia and the European Union and rose in the United States, China and Indonesia. The US increase, 133 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, was the largest of any country, driven by higher electricity demand and a rebound in coal power. Emissions growth slowed across the G20, which accounts for about three-quarters of global emissions, with the US the major exception.
What it means for India
India’s reported fall in emissions in 2025 is notable, though NSH has not seen the country-level figure or its causes in the report itself. A weak monsoon and slower industrial growth, as well as record solar additions, can all influence a single year’s numbers, and India’s per-capita emissions remain well below the global average.
The report’s benchmarks will nevertheless be uncomfortable for India. A 75% cut in coal-fired electricity by 2035 is far from India’s current trajectory, in which coal still provides most of its power and, as NSH reports today, half of its coal plants are short of fuel because demand is rising so fast. India’s position in climate negotiations has consistently been that developed countries must cut faster and provide finance, so that developing countries can grow while decarbonising.
The report also strengthens the case for adaptation. Every additional tenth of a degree increases the risk of extreme heat, erratic monsoons and sea-level rise, all of which India experiences directly. “Every additional fraction of a degree and additional year of warming above 1.5°C increases climate impacts and risks,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s executive director.
Reactions
Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, said governments must enact policies to cut fossil-fuel use as soon as possible. Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa called the situation “a historic failure of political leadership”.
What comes next
The report is designed to inform COP31, which opens in Antalya, Türkiye, on 9 November. Its message to negotiators is that the debate has moved from whether 1.5°C can be held to how much overshoot the world will accept, and who will pay to bring temperatures back down.
