World still has chance to limit global warming to 1.5C, says new report

There is still a narrow but real chance for the world to avoid the worst impacts of climate breakdown and return to the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C — if governments act swiftly and decisively to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new assessment by Climate Analytics.

The report, published just days before the start of the Cop30 UN climate summit in Belém, Brazil, argues that current government targets are inadequate and must be urgently revised. It calls for a rapid expansion of renewable energy and the electrification of key sectors including transport, heating, and industry, The Guardian writes. 

World leaders are gathering in Belém, a city near the mouth of the Amazon River, on November 6 and 7 to discuss the worsening climate crisis ahead of Cop30, which begins on November 10. The talks come amid growing concern that global temperatures have already exceeded 1.5C above preindustrial levels for two consecutive years — a threshold set by the 2015 Paris Agreement as the upper limit to avoid catastrophic climate effects.

A recent report by the UN Environment Programme (Unep) warned that current national plans to reduce emissions would result in global heating of about 2.3C to 2.5C. Scientists have long cautioned that such levels would bring a sharp increase in extreme weather events and cause irreversible damage to ecosystems, including forests, oceans, and ice sheets.

Climate Analytics researchers say their roadmap could ensure that global warming peaks at 1.7C before 2050, and could be reduced to 1.5C by the end of the century through the complete phaseout of fossil fuels and the use of carbon removal technologies to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

However, the report warns that temporarily overshooting 1.5C would still carry significant dangers. Scientists are particularly worried about triggering climate tipping points — self-reinforcing processes such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet or the transformation of the Amazon rainforest from a carbon sink into a carbon source — that could accelerate warming beyond human control. Coral bleaching, one of these tipping points, may already have reached a critical stage, according to recent research.

“Overshoot of 1.5C is a woeful political failure and will bring increased damages and risk of tipping points that otherwise could have been avoided. But this roadmap shows that it is still within our power to bring warming back well below 1.5C by 2100. We must do all we can to limit any time we spend above this safety threshold to minimise the risk of irreversible climate damages, and the devastation that would be caused by crossing tipping points," Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, said. 

At Cop30, countries are expected to present updated national climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), outlining their emissions targets and actions. Yet fewer than half have submitted new NDCs so far, and many existing ones fall short of Paris Agreement goals.

Unep analysis found that current NDCs would result in a 2.5C rise in global temperatures — potentially as high as 2.8C — with only a 10% cut in carbon emissions by 2035. Climate Analytics estimates that to limit warming to 1.7C, global emissions must fall by 20% by 2030 and by 11% annually throughout the 2030s, while methane emissions must decline by 30% by 2035.

“The last five years have cost us precious time in the critical decade of climate action. However, they have also seen a revolution in renewables and batteries, which have shattered records across the globe. Riding this tailwinds can help turbocharge our clean energy future and catch up on lost time,” Neil Grant, a senior expert at Climate Analytics, added. 

By Sabina Mammadli