Five Facts You Need To Know From The U.N.'s Major Emissions Gap Report

Emissions from the United States have far exceeded that of all other countries notes the UNEP Emissions Gap report. —Jon Cherry—Getty Images The goal of limiting global warming to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is largely out of reach.

That’s according to the United Nations Environmental Program’s (UNEP) 2026 Emissions Gap report released on Wednesday, considered the definitive assessment of global climate action.

“We’ve spent decades postponing cuts to emissions and now we’re facing the consequences,” Anne Olhoff, director of the UNEP-Copenhagen Climate Centre, and one of the report’s authors, said after the report’s publication.

“The world can still attain the goals of the Paris Agreement but we must work hard to not only meet but surpass our most ambitious climate targets.

The longer we wait, the larger the risk that we jeopardize the temperature goal.” While the report’s warning is stark, that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost.

Coordinated efforts to reduce emissions can still have a meaningful impact on climate change , it says—but action must be taken quickly.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the Emissions Gap report.

The 1.5°C target is mostly out of reach Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world agreed to halt planetary warming at 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures and to pursue efforts to limit warming by 1.5°C.

Doing so would provide a greater chance at avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

The window to avoid overshooting the 1.5°C goal, however, is now closed, the report finds.

But that doesn’t mean that there’s no hope for climate action.

It is still possible to limit the overshoot and bring temperatures back below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.

Every fraction of a degree of warming above 1.5°C increases climate impacts, making the goal to limit as much warming beyond 1.5°C all the more important.

The world is on track to reach 2.8°C of warming by 2100 Under the terms of the Paris Agreement, countries must submit updated climate pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which outline specific goals to reduce national emissions.