UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2025 finds updated pledges would still lead to 2.3-2.5°C of warming this century.
Apparent progress largely driven by accounting changes rather than real emission cuts.
Global emissions rose 2.3% in 2024, reaching 57.7 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
Only 60 Parties, covering 63% of global emissions, have submitted new NDCs for 2035.
UNEP warns that global temperature rise will likely exceed 1.5°C within the next decade.
A new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) assessment has found that updated global climate pledges have resulted in only marginal progress towards limiting global warming, leaving the world on course for dangerous temperature rises and escalating climate risks.
The Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target finds that, even if countries fully implement their latest Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, global temperatures are projected to rise by 2.3-2.5 degrees Celsius (°C) this century. This represents a modest improvement from last year’s 2.6-2.8°C projection.
However, UNEP warns that much of this progress is illusory, driven by accounting changes rather than real emission cuts. The gains are largely negated by geopolitical realities and accounting changes, the paper pointed out.
The report found that new pledges have “barely moved the needle” towards achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to well below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to cap it at 1.5°C.
Of the roughly 0.3°C reduction in warming projections compared with last year’s report, one-third stems from methodological updates. The report further warns that the upcoming withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement in January 2026 will offset about 0.1°C of the improvement.
“Nations have had three attempts to deliver promises made under the Paris Agreement, and each time they have landed off target,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP. She added, “While national climate plans have delivered some progress, it is nowhere near fast enough, which is why we still need unprecedented emissions cuts in an increasingly tight window, with an increasingly challenging geopolitical backdrop.”
Rising emissions and poor participation in the pledge process compound the lack of ambition. Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rose by 2.3 per cent in 2024, reaching 57.7 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent — more than four times the annual average growth rate of the 2010s.
By September 30, 2025, only 60 Parties to the Paris Agreement — representing 63 per cent of global GHG emissions — had submitted or announced new 2035 NDCs.
Even full implementation of current NDCs would reduce expected global emissions in 2035 by just 15 per cent compared with 2019 levels. To align with the 1.5°C target, emissions would need to fall by 55 per cent by 2035. Moreover, most countries are not even on track to meet their 2030 NDC targets, underscoring what UNEP calls a “huge implementation gap.”
The report warned that due to continued delays in deep emissions cuts, global temperatures will very likely exceed 1.5°C within the next decade. The challenge now, it says, is to ensure that this overshoot is temporary and as limited as possible.
Every fraction of a degree avoided will reduce the scale of damages, losses, and health impacts, particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable communities. Minimising overshoot also reduces dependence on risky and costly carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies.
UNEP stresses that action by the G20 bloc — responsible for 77 per cent of global emissions, excluding the African Union — will be pivotal. Although seven G20 members have submitted new NDCs, the group collectively remains off track to meet its 2030 goals.
The report noted that the world is technically well-positioned to accelerate action, thanks to rapidly falling costs of renewable technologies such as wind and solar power, and lowering deployment costs.
Inger Andersen remains cautiously optimistic: “But it is still possible — just. Proven solutions already exist... Now is the time for countries to go all in and invest in their future with ambitious climate action — action that delivers faster economic growth, better human health, more jobs, energy security and resilience.”
To close the emissions gap, UNEP recommends:
Overcoming policy, governance, institutional, and technical barriers;
Delivering a massive increase in financial and technical support to developing countries;
Redesigning the international financial architecture to unlock climate finance.
The report concludes that even under its most ambitious scenario—combining conditional NDCs with all announced net-zero pledges—the world would still warm by 1.9°C this century, with only a 66 per cent chance of staying below that level.