Fight for 1.5°C is the fight for humanity | Report

Record heat waves, deadly flooding and extreme weather reflect an ever-warming planet poised to soon breach safe temperature limits, but doubling down on climate action now could avoid a climate catastrophe, according to United Nations (UN) “Limiting Overshoot – Navigating exceedance of 1.5°C and pathways towards return” report released on Tuesday. The new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that the world is failing to keep the promise made under the 2015 Paris Agreement. World leaders had pledged to keep temperature rise to the 1.5°C limit above pre-industrial levels. Scientists say this threshold is critical to avoiding the worst climate devastation. Rapid, collective and global action remains vital to cap the temperature rise at 1.5°C.

The scorching heat in the northern hemisphere in recent months, raging wildfires and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said. He recalled the historic pledge made a decade ago at the Paris climate negotiations.

“The fight for 1.5 degrees is the fight for humanity,” he said. “We are set to breach the 1.5°C limit within the next few years.”

Every fraction of a degree will cost lives, destroy livelihoods, deepen inequality and push ecosystems closer to irreversible damage. There are no good outcomes if temperatures remain above 1.5°C consistently, warned UNEP chief Inger Andersen.

“Across the globe, extreme heatwaves are already proving that climate impacts will strike faster, hit harder, and last longer, costing more lives and causing deeper disruption,” she said.

Ms. Andersen urged the world to get on the right path by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening resilience and adaptation. She stressed the need to ensure any exceedance of 1.5°C is as small and short as possible.

“Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe,” the Secretary-General said.

According to Mr. Guterres, swift climate action can still bring the world back from the brink. “We can still bring warming back below 1.5°C by the end of the century,” he said. That demands an “overshoot of ambition” through accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels and the renewables revolution, slashing methane pollution and protecting land, forest and oceans. Governments must over-deliver on national climate plans and net zero commitments. Developed countries must triple adaptation finance and ensure it reaches those most at risk.

The report warns that above 1.5°C, risks and impacts will intensify with every extra fraction of a degree, including intensified extreme weather, ecosystem loss and submersion of small island developing States and low-lying coastal cities. The likelihood of crossing irreversible tipping points increases, including the destabilisation of major ice sheets and degradation of the Amazon rainforest. Mitigation and adaptation must advance together, prioritising interventions such as nature-based cooling. Countries with greater responsibility for climate change should act the fastest with the greatest ambition.

“The solutions are at hand, and the world has never been better equipped to deploy them,” Mr. Guterres said.