New Delhi (ABC Live): A decade after the Paris Agreement sparked global optimism, the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target delivers its starkest warning yet. The world is not simply slow in cutting emissions -- global greenhouse gases are rising rapidly, and the remaining path to 1.5°C now includes a dangerous temporary overshoot. Although science still offers a narrow pathway, political choices are closing it faster than expected.
ABC Live unpacks the data, trends, and implications.
Global greenhouse gas emissions climbed to 57.7 GtCO₂e in 2024, a 2.3% rise from 2023. This growth is unexpected and deeply worrying. It marks the fastest rise in more than 15 years. Even more importantly, emissions are now rising four times faster than the average annual growth of the 2010s. As a result, claims that the world has already passed "peak emissions" no longer hold.
Because deforestation caused 53% of the global emissions increase, land-use change has become as critical as the energy sector. Meanwhile, fossil CO₂ continues rising despite rapid renewable energy deployment, proving that clean energy is not yet displacing fossil fuels at the required scale.
Countries were expected to strengthen their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2025. However, only one-third submitted new NDCs, and most changes offered limited or cosmetic increases in ambition. Consequently, the revised pledges barely shift global warming projections.
More seriously, countries are failing to implement their existing commitments. UNEP warns that the widening implementation gap is now a major barrier to climate progress.
EGR2025
As a result of weak ambition and inconsistent implementation, the world faces 5-7 GtCO₂e of additional emissions by 2030 -- an increase that further pushes 1.5°C out of reach.
UNEP maintains that limiting warming to 1.5°C is technically feasible, but the world can no longer get there without a temporary overshoot. As a result, global temperatures will rise above 1.5°C for some years before they can be brought down again. This overshoot will force countries to rely on large, costly, and politically difficult carbon removal later this century.
This conclusion aligns with the UNFCCC Adaptation Gap Report 2025, which ABC Live analysed here:
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Both reports show that overshoot will sharply increase adaptation costs and climate losses, especially for developing nations.
EGR2025
Because the world's current trajectory (46 GtCO₂e in 2035) is far above the 25 GtCO₂e needed for a 1.5°C-aligned pathway, the gap for 1.5°C has widened to 21 GtCO₂e per year. Moreover, UNEP notes that every 0.1°C of avoided peak warming requires carbon removal equal to five years of current global emissions.
The G20 produces 77% of global emissions, so their actions determine global progress. Yet:
The G20's slow progress limits the world's ability to bend the emissions curve in time. Yet UNEP avoids naming political obstacles, including fossil-fuel lobbying and industrial interests, even though they directly influence policy stagnation.
The report makes clear that the world already has the technology and financial capacity to cut emissions quickly. However, global governance remains too weak to convert pledges into action. As a result:
Unless climate finance expands dramatically, major emitters adopt enforceable policies, and vulnerable nations receive support against exploitative carbon-removal pressures, the Paris Agreement risks becoming a framework of voluntary ambition without measurable impact.
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