Since countries signed onto the 2015 Paris Agreement, the United Nations has regularly reported on the world’s progress at limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. A landmark UN report published today brings an end to that era — and the beginning of a new one.
The world will likely surpass 1.5C in the next few years, it says, and warming will peak at around 1.8C in the best-case scenario. Without changes to current policies, warming could reach roughly 2.6C. Today’s long-term warming level stands at 1.4C, with occasional spikes above that.
Since exceeding the 1.5C threshold is virtually guaranteed, the goal must now become “overshoot, peak and decline” — that is, putting climate change in reverse, ideally by the end of this century.
