The rotor of a wind turbine turns round at a wind power plant on top of a mountain in Pyeongchang, about 210 km (130 miles) east of Seoul, May 4, 2007. Humans need to make sweeping cuts in greenhouse gas emissions over the next 50 years to keep global warming in check, but it need cost only a tiny fraction of world output, a major UN climate report said on Friday. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in the third of a series of reports, said keeping the rise in temperatures to within 2 degrees Celsius would cost only 0.12 percent of annual gross domestic product. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won (SOUTH KOREA)/File Photo
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has said the world must cut carbon emissions by nearly a fifth by 2030 and by almost half by 2035 to avoid dangerously overshooting climate targets.
Although the opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5C has passed, keeping the overshoot as small as possible remains achievable, reports The Guardian.
The latest UNEP report on the gap between climate ambitions and real-life policies warns that governments are failing to turn long-term emissions pledges into immediate action.
Global carbon emissions appeared to stall in 2025, remaining broadly unchanged from the previous year. However, UNEP analysts cautioned against declaring a peak amid geopolitical uncertainty and continued dependence on fossil fuels, despite rapid growth in renewable energy.
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by 2030 and 45 percent by 2035 would offer a strong chance of limiting warming to 1.7C above preindustrial levels.
While extreme events such as the record heatwaves of recent months would still become more frequent, such reductions could prevent conditions from deteriorating far more severely, The Guardian reports.
Governments have been warned for years that the window for action was closing, said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s executive director.
She told The Guardian, “[We used to say] there’s still an opportunity if we make this herculean effort [to stay within the 1.5C limit]. It’s now clear the herculean effort was not made. We procrastinated, and now we are saying this window has closed.”
Andersen nevertheless urged countries not to abandon the 1.5C target, a cornerstone of the Paris climate agreement.
Under Donald Trump, the US, the world’s second-largest emitter after China, has withdrawn from the Paris agreement and threatened to reverse its long-standing decline in greenhouse gas emissions.
US resistance also appears to have weakened climate commitments elsewhere, with pledges made last year falling notably short, according to UNEP.
At the COP30 climate summit in Brazil last November, governments were expected to announce fresh emissions-cutting commitments under the Paris agreement, but their promises proved inadequate.
Even if every updated pledge were fulfilled, global temperatures would still rise by 2.6C above preindustrial levels, threatening lives across vast regions, UNEP projections show.
Existing policies point to a rise of 2.8C. Every five years of emissions at current levels adds 0.1C to projected warming, while scientists warn that greater overshooting of the 1.5C threshold raises the risk of triggering irreversible climate tipping points.
UNEP has also identified rapid methane reductions as a way to curb warming in the near term. Methane is a greenhouse gas around 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.