World must cut emissions 18% in four years to find a way back below 1.5°C – UN 2026 Emissions Gap Report

Countries must slash greenhouse gas emissions by almost a fifth (18%) by 2030 and 45% by 2035, compared with 2025 levels. Only then can they stop global heating from running far past 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) and bring it back down by the end of the century, the United Nations said on Wednesday. In its annual Emissions Gap Report, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said decades of weak action had made crossing 1.5°C "imminent and unavoidable". If deep cuts start now, warming could peak at about 1.7–1.8°C around the middle of the century, with roughly an even chance of falling back to 1.5°C by 2100. "Overshoot is not surrender," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a message on the report. "We can still keep it as small and as short as possible."