The world is expected to exceed the 1.5C climate target, with global temperatures projected to peak at around 1.8C even under the best-case scenario, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Its ‘Limiting Overshoot’ report warns that due to insufficient global action to cut emissions, global temperature rise is set to cross 1.5C within the next few years, “pushing climate risks and impacts to increasingly dangerous heights.”
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, 189 nations pledged to reduce their carbon emissions to stave off the worst impacts of climate change and ensure the 1.5C warming threshold is not crossed.
The UNEP report stresses that there are “no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5C,” but states that there is still time to bring temperatures back down to that temperature by the end of the century if action is taken.
Professor Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the Met Office and one of the report’s co-authors, said that focus needs to shift towards...