The world is now heading towards “irrecoverable
overshoot” unless governments start rapidly cutting
emissions and abandon their support for the fossil fuel
industry – as collective climate action stalls now for the
fifth consecutive year, the Climate Action Tracker reports
today in its global update, released at COP31.
The new
reality of overshoot of 1.5°C means that the task is now to
limit its magnitude and duration. The guiding principle of
climate action must be to bring warming back below (and
ideally well below) 1.5C by 2100, with warming continuing
to decline thereafter.
- With the policies they
have in place today, collective government action will
result in 2.7C of warming by 2100 (slightly up from last
year’s 2.6C) as it stood from 2021-24. - If
governments meet their 2030 and 2035 targets, warming would
still be 2.6C by 2100, no change from last
year. - Combined pledges and targets including long
term targets would result in warming of 2.1°C in 2100,
slightly down from 2.2°C last year. - The CAT’s
Optimistic scenario, with all pledges, targets, long term
and net zero targets would result in 1.9C in
2100.
“The stark choice for governments is to
either continue to support the fossil fuel industry, which
would consign humanity to insurmountable economic damages,
rising mortality from heat and climate-driven diseases and
disasters that they are unable to adapt to – or pivot to the
solutions which are available and cheaper than ever,” says
Bill Hare, CEO of CAT partner organisation Climate
Analytics.
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“The imminence of breaching 1.5°C cannot
be an excuse to open the door to defeatism – the focus has
to be on accelerating action to limit the magnitude and
duration of overshoot. Every increment of warming above
1.5°C means even more significant consequences across
climate, nature and human systems,” adds Hare.
The CAT
notes there are definite signs of progress: clean
electricity met all additional global demand in 2025, India
and China are deploying renewables at record pace, EV
adoption rates hit new highs, and Brazil’s Amazon
deforestation has fallen sharply, with some regions at their
lowest levels since records began.
“With the closure
of the Strait of Hormuz exposing our vulnerability to
geopolitical shocks, the case for renewables and
electrification has never been stronger – and it does appear
that global emissions could be on the verge of a peak and a
much faster decline than we had previously thought,” says
Dr. Niklas Höhne, of CAT partner organisation NewClimate
Institute.
But the CAT report points out that the
“brutal truth” is that the positive developments do not yet
add up to bending the curve of emissions fast enough.
Increasing energy demand and build-out of new fossil fuel
infrastructure have led to still rising
emissions.
“Governments collectively are simply not
moving fast enough to adopt the policies that would enable
us to escape from the emerging overshoot trap. Worse,
several are taking their foot off the accelerator and
slowing their climate action – or in cases such as the USA,
Canada and New Zealand – rolling it back at a “staggering
level,” adds report lead author, Climate Analytics policy
analyst Sarah Heck.
This lack of decisive action means
that long-term warming is expected to cross the 1.5°C limit
around 2030. To hold overshoot to the lowest level still
achievable, the CAT has calculated that the pace of action
has to accelerate over time: from around 4% emission
reductions year to 2030 (range of 3-5%), to 7% a year in the
first half of the 2030s (range of 6-9%), and 9% a year over
2035–2050 (range of 6-15%). Every year of delay steepens
the curve.
How does this differ from the
UNEP Gap report? The UNEP Gap
Report uses the CAT data from last year’s update: today’s
release is of our new, 2026 data. Last year, the CAT
factored in the US exit from the Paris Agreement. We found
that removing the US NDC and net zero targets would increase
the estimated end of century warming by 0.06–0.07°C,
contributing to the 0.1 °C increase reported in our 2025
“Pledges and targets” scenario.
http://www.climateactiontracker.org
The
Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific analysis
that measures government climate action against the globally
agreed aim of holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing
efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. It is a collaboration of
the following organisations:
Climate
Analytics
Climate Analytics is a non-profit
institute leading research on climate science and policy in
relation to the 1.5°C limit in the Paris Agreement. It has
offices in Germany, the United States, Togo, Australia,
Nepal and Trinidad and Tobago.
www.climateanalytics.org
NewClimate
Institute
NewClimate Institute is an independent
non-profit organisation that develops solutions to tackle
climate change and drives their implementation worldwide.
Through research, policy advice and knowledge sharing, we
aim to raise the ambition for climate action and support
sustainable development.
www.newclimate.org
