UNEP's Emissions Gap Report Puts Full-Pledge Warming at 2.3°C to 2.5°C, and Current Policies at 2.8°C

The UN Environment Programme published its Emissions Gap Report 2025, titled Off Target, on 4 November, days before COP30 opens in Belém. The annual report assesses whether national pledges and policies put the world on course to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature goals. UNEP finds that full implementation of nationally determined contributions would lead to warming of 2.3°C to 2.5°C over this century, down from 2.6°C to 2.8°C in last year's report. Global greenhouse gas emissions grew 2.3% in 2024 to 57.7 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, according to the report.

For 2°C pathways, UNEP says emissions in 2030 would have to fall 25% from 2019 levels, and for 1.5°C pathways, 40%. UNEP found that only 60 parties, covering 63% of global greenhouse gas emissions, had submitted or announced new NDCs with mitigation targets for 2035 by 30 September 2025. The difference between UNEP's coverage figure and the UNFCCC's synthesis report, which covered about 30% of 2019 emissions, reflects that UNEP includes targets that have been announced but not yet formally submitted, such as China's.

The report concludes that the multi-decadal average of global temperature rise will exceed 1.5°C, at least temporarily, very likely within the next decade. UNEP models a scenario of rapid mitigation from 2025 designed to limit overshoot to about 0.3°C, with a 66% chance, and return to 1.5°C by 2100. The report also quantifies the cost of overshoot in terms of carbon removal: reversing each 0.1°C of overshoot would require permanently removing and storing about five years of current global annual CO2 emissions.

The report points to the rapid growth of wind and solar, and the falling costs of deployment, as evidence that the technologies to deliver deep cuts are available. For energy markets, the report's projections describe a world in which fossil fuel demand continues for decades but under growing policy pressure.