“One thing is already clear: we will not be able to contain the global warming below 1.5C in the next few years,” UN secretary general António Guterres told delegates at a meeting of the World Meteorological Organisation last week.
“Overshooting is now inevitable. Which means that we’re going to have a period, bigger or smaller, with higher or lower intensity, above 1.5C in the years to come.”
Despite this, the UN is keen to stress that there are some significant green shoots in the new report that provide hope.
Many more countries are expected to lodge plans as their leaders gather for COP30 in Belém in Brazil.
Large carbon producers such as India and Indonesia haven’t yet unveiled their carbon plans. They will likely do so during COP30 and these may have a significant impact on the overall projections for 2035.
Some countries are also likely to cut faster and deeper than they’ve promised, say experts.
“It’s actually completely reasonable to look at China,” said Todd Stern, former US Special Envoy for climate change.
“They’ll put down a certain number, which is not great, and then they will overachieve it, and China does that a lot.”
The UN says they are confident that emissions globally will likely peak and start to decline in the next few years, for the first time since the industrial revolution in the 19th century.
They say the plans in place show clear stepping stones to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century. Net zero means balancing the amount of planet-warming “greenhouse” gases produced by human activities with the amount being actively removed from the atmosphere.
One important factor is that the cuts assessed by the UN include the planned US pledge submitted under President Biden.
While President Donald Trump has said he will pull out of the Paris agreement, that process is not completed yet, so the UN are keeping the US plans in their calculations even if these won’t happen as planned.