World set to breach 1.5°C warming limit set by Paris Climate Agreement

Devastating wildfires, heatwaves, floods and storms. This is what the world looks like in 2026, at 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Now the UN says the window has closed to stop the earth heating above 1.5 degrees, a target set by leaders at the Paris climate conference in 2015. But it says it's still possible and worthwhile to limit the overshoot as much as possible, as every additional fraction of a degree and year of warming increases climate impacts and risks. The world's average temperature is on track now to rise above 2.8 degrees C. If countries hit their existing greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, the warming will slow to about 2.6. The job for world leaders gathering in Turkey next month is to decide on much more ambitious targets than anything currently on the table. Overshoot is not surrender. we can still keep it as small and as short as possible and bring temperatures back below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. The UNEP says that to achieve a lowest possible overshoot scenario, which would keep peak warming to between 1.7 and 1.8 C, before returning global average temperatures to at or below 1.5, the cuts in global emissions need to be deep and fast. – 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040, compared with 2025 levels. This would require a tripling of renewable electricity capacity by 2035 and dramatic cuts to fossil fuels, including the phase out of coal by 2040, as well as deep cuts in methane emissions.