UN: World on track to double warming limit this century

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk - 11/20/23 5:45 PM ET

Energy & Environment

The Big Story

UN: World on track to double warming limit this century

A United Nations report warned Monday that the Earth is on track to warm up to 2.9 degrees this century, nearly double the UN’s 1.5 threshold.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said that under current unconditional emissions pledges, nations of the world are on track to cause 2.9 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, compared to 2.5 degrees under conditional pledges.

The annual Emissions Gap Report projects that to limit warming to the 1.5-degree threshold, greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by at least 42 percent by the end of the decade. Emissions must fall 28 percent to stay within the 2-degree limit of the Paris Agreement.

“Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end three-degree temperature rise,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a Monday press conference.

“In short, the report shows that the emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon. A canyon littered with broken promises, broken lives, and broken records.”

Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.

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