Abstract:
On September 2, 2026, the United Nations Environment Program issued a report stating that limiting global warming to 1.5°C remains the core goal of the Paris Agreement. However, under current policies and other recent development trajectories, global warming exceeding 1.5°C is generally considered unavoidable.
The United Nations Environment Program's "Focus Report on Limiting Warming and Overshooting" analyzes the possible impacts of humanity entering the era of "warming exceeding 1.5°C" and the choices that can still be made.
The report pointed out that the so-called "overshoot" is a dynamic development path, covering the stages of global warming exceeding 1.5°C, reaching the peak temperature, and subsequent temperature decline. The report focuses on the risks and impacts of higher warming levels, analyzes the mitigation paths needed to limit warming peaks and promote temperature declines, and emphasizes that adaptation and development methods must respond to changing climate conditions to cope with the entire process of warming overshoot, reaching peaks and falling back.
Existing evidence has repeatedly shown that the higher the peak temperature rise and the longer it lasts above 1.5°C, the greater the risks to human society and natural ecosystems. Decisions made now are therefore crucial: the lower the peak of global warming, the smaller the risks to humans, societies, economies and ecosystems; the shorter the duration of overshoot, the lower the likelihood of breaching irreversible thresholds and upper limits of adaptive capacity.
The report emphasizes that climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation must be advanced simultaneously. Warming overshoot is not a reason to give up action, but it means that action must be taken more urgently.
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