UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last year acknowledged the inevitability of overshooting 1.5° C, but this is the first time a UN agency has addressed the matter head-on in a report.
UNEP had warned that meeting the 1.5° C target was becoming unlikely as greenhouse gas emissions rose year after year and global temperatures continued to set records.
But its latest report offered the blunt conclusion that “global action to cut greenhouse gas emissions has not been fast enough to avoid global warming crossing 1.5° C”.
The world has already warmed roughly 1.4° C since 1900, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists say any overshoot of 1.5° C threatens more extreme weather and risks irreversible changes like the loss of ice sheets and coral reefs.
