UN Report Highlights Dangers of Overshoot of 1.5 degrees Celsius of Global Warming, Pathways to Limit Risks

A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) makes clear that exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming is now inevitable, putting the world in danger of increasingly severe-and in some cases irreversible-climate impacts. The report urges immediate global action to limit the duration and magnitude of the overshoot of 1.5 degrees Celsius, including through sharp cuts in heat-trapping emissions and actively removing heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere. It also calls for investments in resilience that are commensurate with the severity of impacts already unfolding.

The Paris Agreement set a goal to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius and as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible, a science-based goal recognized to significantly curtail climate harms. President Trump has withdrawn the United States-the world's largest historical emitter of heat-trapping emissions-from both the Paris Agreement and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the bedrock global climate treaty created to limit and address human-caused climate change.

Below is a statement by Dr. Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"It's heartbreaking and infuriating that decades of grossly insufficient action from policymakers and the deceptive tactics of fossil fuel companies have brought us to this point of unprecedented and dangerous climate harms. Breaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature guardrail is a monumental climate injustice that will impose the worst harms on those who have contributed the least to the climate crisis.

"World leaders, especially from richer, high-emitting nations, must do their utmost to limit the extent of this overshoot, while ramping up funding for climate resilience across the globe. They must also commit to a rapid transition away from fossil fuels alongside accelerating clean energy deployment, which is still our best option for curtailing climate change. While negative emissions measures will be required to return temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius, an overreliance on these strategies that are unproven on a large scale is costly, risky, and will create additional social and environmental challenges.

"This year's extreme heat waves, wildfires, drought and storms, together with long-term irreversible impacts like the loss of major glaciers and accelerating sea level rise, are already taking a profound toll on people, ecosystems and economies in the United States and around the globe. We are already in a world where climate loss and damage from extreme impacts are outpacing the ability of nations to adapt. It's madness to continue down this path of destruction largely wrought by deep-pocketed polluters and their corrupt political enablers. We owe it to people around the world and to future generations to fight for and secure a safer path now."