UN report: current climate pledges still point to 2.6°C of warming by 2100

 Image credit: Samuel Faber via Pixabay/UNEP. Illustrative image; it is not a chart from the report. Even if governments deliver their climate pledges and maintain similar efforts, global temperatures are projected to reach about 2.6°C above pre-industrial levels this century, according to UNEP’s [Emissions Gap Report 2026](https://www.unep.org/en/publications/report/emissions-gap-report-2026), released on October 21. Under policies already in force, the projection is 2.8°C; even the most optimistic scenario combining national pledges with additional net-zero targets reaches 2.1°C. The report says passing 1.5°C is now unavoidable. Its “lowest possible overshoot” pathway would limit the peak to 1.7–1.8°C around mid-century and return to 1.5°C or below by 2100, with about a 50% chance. That is a scenario, not a forecast or a guarantee. To follow that route, global emissions would need to fall 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040, compared with 2025. Current national pledges would deliver only a 5–8% reduction by 2030 and 11–15% by 2035. The pathway also depends on removing and permanently storing roughly 320 billion tonnes of CO₂ over the century—an uncertain technical and economic undertaking, not a replacement for cutting emissions now. UNEP says the outlook worsened since last year partly because of the United States’ formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and revised historical emissions estimates. The [Associated Press’ report](https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-united-states-projections-0eff0561e0af1f3d7421a96d9db02ba9) adds that U.S. emissions rose by 133 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent in 2025, driven by higher electricity demand and a rebound in coal generation. The UN report’s practical message is that the 1.5°C goal now means minimizing the overshoot and bringing temperatures back down; whether that happens depends on much faster emissions cuts and whether carbon removal proves feasible at the scale required.